


Something Beautiful

by otherhawk



Category: Ocean's (Movies), Ocean's Eleven (2001), Ocean's Twelve (2004)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Coma, Denial, F/M, Gen, friendship is pretty good though, romance isn't all it's cracked up to be, serious injury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-02-13 11:33:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 45,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2149182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otherhawk/pseuds/otherhawk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after Ocean's 13. Study of an unhealthy relationship. Isabel isn't Rusty's happy ending</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title of taken from Fight Club. So I can't talk about it.
> 
> This really isn't the ending that I normally see for them. Honestly, I prefer happy endings and sweet relationships. Honestly.

The first time is his fault, it really is. Oh, she doesn't kid herself; that doesn't excuse her. For some things there are no excuses.

But he comes home and says they need to talk, and he stands in front of her and tells her he slept with someone else, and he tells her that he's sorry, and the fury sweeps out of her like a tidal wave. He's still talking when her hand flies back, and afterwards he's still standing, his eyes fixed on hers, still sorry and not-sorry-enough, and it's the surprise that hurts her, the surprise and the betrayal, and it doesn't feel like he has the _right_ …

Then he's on the floor and she feels so sick.

Her hand is aching.

She is horrified, and not by him.

"I have to go," she says, and she grabs her coat and it's not until she's a block away that she realises she didn't say that she was sorry too.

This isn't meant to happen. This isn't who she is. She gave up everything for him, and she knows he loves her as she loves him. She doesn't know what to do, where to go, who to call. For a while she walks the streets and her heart is bruised, her knuckles bloody.

In the end she goes back. Where else is there to go?

He hasn't moved, although it's dark now. There's a bottle by his hand. He looks up and he looks uncertain, like she's never known him. "I'm sorry," he whispers, before she can say anything. "I never meant to hurt you."

The darkness almost hides the bruises. It doesn't hide her guilt. " _I'm_ sorry," she says and her voice is choked. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry."

She falls to her knees and holds him tight and wonders what they do now?

They talk, they drink and they forgive. They promise this will never happen again.

* * *

The second time is still his fault. No. Really. He can be so selfish sometimes. So childish, so obsessive. She's not excusing herself, she understands her sin, but after a night spent pacing in front of a phone that doesn't ring, when annoyance has turned to anger, has turned to worry, has turned to fear, is it any surprise that relief can turn to anger again?

Apologies fall from his mouth right along with the blood.

This time there is no surprise in his eyes. She's standing on a line she truly doesn't wish to cross and she's not even sure he knows or understands.

He is selfish. He says as much himself. This is his fault as well as hers and there will not be a next time. She is determined.

* * *

The morning after, he smiles and laughs and takes her to breakfast and it's like all the problems just melt away. There's love in his eyes, not fear. He's not afraid of her. There's nothing wrong, as long as he's not afraid.

Debbie disagrees. Bright and brash and beautiful Debbie, the girl he took home from Vegas, looks up at him with horror. "What happened?" she says, as they walk into the Standard. Debbie looks at him as though he's something rare and precious, something fragile, something that can be so easily broken.

It sets her teeth on edge. ( _She wishes he wouldn't talk to Debbie. She wishes he wouldn't talk to_ anyone. _)_ The anger starts to rise.

He laughs and lies with ease. "Walked into a door at Walmart," he says, and it's like he's done this a thousand times before.

The anger dies. She takes his hand and wishes she hadn't hurt him.

* * *

The third time he left a wet towel on the bedroom floor again. It is a petty domestic argument that she turns into domestic abuse. She can't lie and call it something else - she thinks she cracked a rib, but he won't let her see. He hides the pain and turns away from her.

That makes her angry too.

Later, she locks herself in the bathroom and cries, watching the blood drip from her hand. It forms a pool on the tile – so much more mess than the stupid towel. ( _Why couldn't he just pick it up?)_

She sleeps with her ear against the bathroom door, longing to hear him make the call.

He doesn't. So maybe that's all his fault, right?

* * *

He is too controlled, she decides. Too self-contained. They rub along together and the friction slides off him and has nowhere to go, until she can't stand it anymore and explodes in fits of anger, righteous and unholy.

It isn't all the time. It isn't every day. It isn't even every week, and if that doesn't make it okay, at least it means she doesn't grow used to the feeling. She is sorry. She is always sorry. And she always tells him that this was the last time, that she will never do it again, and he always smiles and says he believes her.

In time just those words will anger her.

He buys more long sleeve shirts, and hides his eyes behind dark glass.

Some days she thinks maybe he just doesn't mind so much.

* * *

They live in his house, in his city, in his country. He brought her here. He came back into her life and turned everything upside down and then offered her his world. All he has to do is say the word and she will leave.

And he should. She tells him that, while she holds the icepack to his eye. His hand is gripping hers tightly.

"Make me leave," she whispers. Pleads.

For once his eyes are serious. "But I want you to stay," he says, and she thinks that maybe if he had a little less pride, a little less control, he might just say he wanted her to stay and not hurt him anymore.

She wishes she wouldn't hurt him anymore.

If wishes were horses they could ride off into the sunset together.

What else is there to say? She came here because he asked her to and she stays because he wants her to, and in her heart of hearts she knows that all of this is deeply wrong.

He doesn't love easily. Neither does she. And there are times – so many, many times – when their love is enough to set the world on fire, when they are together and nothing can touch them, when life and love and laughter chase the other times into mere memory. If she was on the outside she knows she would say that doesn't make it worth it. And yet, when the stars shine down, just for them, it feels like this is their world and no one else will ever understand.

Maybe he really just doesn't mind so much.

Besides. She will never do it again. She really means it this time.

* * *

It would be easier if he broke his promise like she broke hers. Then all of this would have some sort of rhyme, some sort of reason. She checks his phone and his email time and again, follows him without him ever knowing and she never sees any sign that he's sleeping around.

But he flirts as easily as breathing and he has an unselfconscious beauty that draws too many eyes. Sometimes she watches him walk into a room and she knows that half the people there want to tear his clothes off and throw him down onto the nearest bed, just like she does.

It's natural to feel jealous. She has a right to feel jealous. Just because he can keep it in his pants doesn't mean he's not in the wrong.

He comes home from a job and she's waiting for him. It's been five weeks. She's been alone. Too much time to think, too much time to imagine. She catches him smiling that smile which means he isn't thinking of her.

She gives the jealousy free reign. "Did you let Ocean fuck you?" she demands.

The smile fades. He drops his suitcase to the floor with a dull thud. "Can we not do this?" he asks and he sounds so tired. "I was having a really good day."

The words are damning to her ears. A full confession. She imagines him beneath his friend, hot flesh on flesh, lips parted, legs spread wide, soft words of love and urgency. Always and forever. In her mind he is smiling, and there are no bruises, there is no pain.

Later and he is lying on the floor. He hasn't even had a chance to unpack. The guilt is choking her.

He stirs. "I've never had sex with Danny," he says quietly and he still sounds tired.

"I know," she says. "I'm sorry."

He closes his eyes, and for a moment she thinks that maybe, this time, he isn't going to accept the apology. But then he nods and she kisses him and holds him close.

They make love like they can make love matter.

* * *

She loses count somewhere along the way. She long ago passed the point where she can say it's his fault. ( _And yet._ ) He doesn't fight back. He doesn't throw her out of his life. He doesn't even talk about it, when it's over.

Somewhere, somehow, he made a trade-off in his head. Accepted what was happening as just part of his life now. The price he pays for being with her. Deep inside, she knows this isn't the first time.

The only time he raises his hand and stops her, is the night before his friends are coming to town. "No," he says, his chin raised, and she looks at him, astonished. "Keep it off the face," he tells her. "Keep it where I can hide it."

That is the moment she realises she's damned.

* * *

Sometimes she dreams that all of this is simply over, that she says _no more_ and keeps her word and the happy-ever-after comes at last.

Sometimes she dreams she opens a door and Danny is waiting for her with dark and angry eyes, ready to make her answer for her crime.

In the meantime she sleeps beside him and dreams. Sometimes she just feels like destroying something beautiful.


	2. Chapter 2

The first time it is his fault and he knows it. Maybe that's the problem. It's difficult to convince yourself you're blameless when you already know you're in the wrong. He comes home to her, and he confesses his sin, and he is expecting her anger – really, he is expecting her to leave him.

He is not expecting the punch.

Even if he wanted to, he does not have the chance to dodge or defend himself. There's just the blossoming pain, and the shock and bewilderment. He stares at her. She looks as surprised as he is.

Maybe things could have been different then. Maybe if he could have just found the right words he could have turned it all around. But he just stands and watches her and waits and the anger in her eyes only grows brighter.

The second punch is harder than the first. She sends him to the ground and stands above him and she still looks surprised at what she's done. Surprised and sickened and horrified, and it isn't a shock when she grabs her coat and walks out.

"I have to go," she says. He wonders if she's coming back. He wonders if he wants her to.

He doesn't know what is supposed to happen next.

He doesn't get up, but he reaches up blindly and finds a bottle sitting on the counter. It is some of the good stuff. A present. They were saving it for a special occasion. He supposes this might just qualify.

It gets dark as he drinks. His cheek throbs and his eye is swollen shut. He thinks, maybe, he should stand up and leave before she gets back. His fingers trace over the heat in his face. It is too easy to imagine the look in Danny's eyes. Too easy to imagine the anger and the horror, and Danny would want him to leave right now.

The trouble is, he has left before. It is his usual way of operating, after all. Leave when things get difficult. He sighs. This time he will stay and see it through. The pain is sharp and fresh and massive, but it reminds him of his guilt. He earned this in Lizzie Prior's bed, and maybe if he heard this story from someone else he wouldn't even be on his side. Some guy cheats on some girl and she coldcocks him and walks out. Well, good for her.

He hurt her. He never meant to hurt her. This is all his fault.

He tells her so when she comes in, and she looks at him like her heart is breaking. She tells him she is sorry, and he believes her, and she tells him this will never happen again.

He trusts her.

* * *

The second time it is still his fault. It is also a relief. He has spent the past month not walking on eggshells, and he has told himself a hundred times he is not _waiting._ It will never happen again, she told him, and he's seen no sign she's holding herself back.

He stays out all night. To say he forgets to call her would be to say he forgets. And he does not. He never does.

But he does not call, and she worries, and he comes home and walks straight into her fist. Apologies fall from his mouth right along with the blood.

Deep in the pit of his stomach there is a feeling of relief and satisfaction. Okay. No more uncertainty. This is how things are, and he can work with this. He can _live_ with this.

He gives a small sad smile of acknowledgement to the rightness of things.

His voice is earnest as he tells her he is selfish, and she agrees, even if she doesn't understand all the reasons why. She says there will not be a next time. He thinks she even believes it, but he already knows the way this is going.

He trusts her still.

* * *

The morning is full of love and possibility. She is still unhappy; last night hangs over her like a thundercloud. He smiles and laughs and takes her to breakfast. He can be strong for her, and there is love in her eyes and he is not afraid. He has to show her it doesn't matter.

Debbie disagrees. "What happened?" she asks as they walk into the Standard, and her eyes are huge with horror.

Isabel stirs beside him, and he can read the anger in her footsteps. His heart is treacherous and skips a beat.

"Walked into a door at Walmart," he says with a laugh, and the lie trips off his tongue as easy as ever. The extra detail adds the ring of truth. He learned that early.

Isabel takes his hand, all anger gone. Lies are always safer. He learned that too.

* * *

The third time she says is because he left a wet towel on the bedroom floor again. He knows better. The case she'd been working on was going badly, and she came home angry - the towel is nothing more than the flashpoint.

He cannot look her in the eye as she lashes out. He does not recognise her. He trusts her, he tells himself. He trusts her.

Something cracks beneath her fists, and he is gasping, stumbling to his knees, his fingers curled in the carpet like he's searching for strength. His breathing is ragged. This hurts too much and, just for a moment, he is afraid she is not going to stop – he _trusts_ her – but then she is looking down at him, her eyes frightened and ashamed. "Let me see," she commands softly. "Robert, let me see."

He cannot. She reaches out and he jerks away. It hurts too much. He is not in control and the urge to hide is too strong – he _cannot_ let her see, and her eyes grow dark with anger.

Later, he lies on the floor and watches the blood drip from his hair and stain the carpet. The pain has overwhelmed him into numbness. She has locked herself in the bathroom and he can hear her crying and he longs to go to her, to hold her close and promise everything will be alright. Right now though he is afraid he will only make everything worse.

The phone in his hand is his guilty secret. Danny's number is already on the screen. All it will take is one call, and all of this will be over forever.

He doesn't call. And in the end, that makes all of this his fault, right?

He leaves the towel lying on the floor until the next day.

* * *

It is not as if he doesn't understand that this is wrong. She should not hit him, he knows that. But she does. Not every day, not even every week, but there is a fourth time, a fifth time, a sixthseventheighth time, until they reach a time when counting loses its charm. And he does not dodge or duck, and he does not tell her to stop, and he certainly does not hit her back. He accepts it as the way it is. The price he has to pay for her love. And once he's decided that, 'right' and 'wrong' are meaningless. It simply...is.

But yes, to answer the urgent Dannyquestion in his head, he understands that it's not his fault, but at the same time he knows that living with him is not easy. He is well aware of his faults. She tells him once that she has never acted like this before, and he is almost sure he believes her. He _wants_ to believe her, even though it hurts. He drives her to this.

This is his first relationship to last more than six months. The first time he has lived with someone. In Europe he went so far to get her back. Risked more than himself. Did he really think this would be easy? He'd told her – told himself – that he was ready to work on making this work.

Tess had told him once that relationships involved compromise and sacrifice. He holds a wad of tissues to his bloody lip and stares at himself grimly in the mirror. He doubts this is what she had in mind, but the lesson still stands.

It's not as if pain and danger are anything new to him. He has grown up with them, lived his life with them, and he knows better than anyone what he can cope with, what he can take. A couple of punches do not spell the end of the world, no matter who is doing the punching. Quite simply, he doesn't mind so much as other people would. This is...acceptable. After all, his _job_ carries a high risk of being hurt or beaten or worse, and no one has a problem with that. This...this is not any different.

He ignores the look he can picture in Danny's eyes at the thought, and the protests he can already hear. This is not any different. Really.

And she is always sorry. That has to count for something, right? Each time, when it's over, when she's finished, she tells him she is sorry and she means it, and she holds him and kisses him, and tries to make everything better.

Sometimes, he thinks, she almost hates herself for what she does to him. Like one time when he's lying slumped on the floor, as she holds an ice pack against his face, her other hand wrapped in his, like she can't bear to let go.

His head is throbbing and there is an annoying ringing in his left ear. His vision is just a bit blurry, but he doesn't want to tell her that. He is staring down at the growing bruise on his chest with rapt fascination. "'s shaped like Denmark," he tells her dizzily.

Her grip on his wrist tightens fiercely. He does not wince. "Shut _up,_ " she says, in a low hateful voice.

He wants a Danish.

"Make me leave," she says softly, and now she's looking directly at him, almost pleading. "Please."

He looks up slowly, and the hurt, the desperation in her voice...he can only tell the truth. "But I want you to stay," he says, and for one second there is another answer hovering on his tongue. _Stay. Stay, and don't hurt me anymore._ _Please._ He is angry with himself; he does not beg.

He thinks everything would be better right now, if he only had a Danish.

But she really is sorry, and he thinks that at first she really does think all this can just stop. She doesn't see him as her victim.

In the end, he trusts her. He trusts her not to go too far.

So many justifications. So many reasons to cover the fact that he could walk out whenever he likes, and he chooses not to. But in the end, it all comes down to one simple fact; he loves her.

He loves the way she smiles at him, he loves the way she laughs, and the way her eyes sparkle with bright mischief. He loves the way she guiltily watches the daytime soaps, and claims every time that she was watching the news and just couldn't find the remote to turn off the TV. He loves the way that when it's just the two of them she'll slip into Italian, or French, or Spanish without even noticing, because she _trusts_ him, and she is relaxed. He loves the way she cheats at cards, and the way she eats popcorn, and the way she creeps over onto his side of the bed when it's cold, until she's draped over him like an extra blanket. He loves the way she watches him when she thinks he isn't looking. He loves her warmth and her humour and her endless, boundless determination. He loves _her._ All of her. Yes, she hits him, but what does it matter next to all of that? How can the two possibly compare?

This is his choice.

* * *

Once, he almost explains it all to Danny. By chance, Tess and Isabel are both out of town, and he is visiting, and there has been whisky and movies and ice cream, and they're sitting on the sofa together. He feels lightheaded and lighthearted.

Danny has been sneaking glances at him all day. Troubled. Unsettled. There have been phone calls before this, times when Danny has suggested he thinks something might be wrong, but now they are together and Danny _looks_ at him, and Rusty feels laid bare.

Guiltily, he thinks of the tiny, not-even-worth-mentioning cut on his hip, and the two bruises just below his chest that are so close to healed no one could really see them unless they knew to look. He has nothing to worry about, unless Danny decides on a strip search.

He hates hiding things from Danny, though. It always feels like he is in the wrong. He _knows_ how Danny will react to this, knows that Danny will be angry beyond words, but maybe, if he can get Danny to calm down and look past emotion, maybe he can explain to Danny, let Danny see that she's still worth it, that even if this isn't...conventional...he still loves her.

It is his turn to steal a glance at Danny. No. No, he does not think Danny will be persuaded. Oh, Danny will listen, and Danny will understand, but in the end Danny will say that she _hurts_ him, and that will be all that matters.

And if he does confess, sooner than later he will have to choose. Sometimes he is afraid he already has. After all, from a certain point of view, what he's doing here is protecting her from Danny's anger, and that's because she's hurting what Danny loves.

"Everything okay?" Danny asks, not looking away from the TV.

He shrugs. "Sure," he says easily.

Danny looks round and gazes at him intently. "Rus'. Is everything okay?" It is a different intonation. A different question.

He takes care before answering. "Yes," he says softly. "I'm happy."

It is true. Ninety nine percent of the time, it is true. He might be a perfectionist, but he's not so stupid to think that any relationship can be perfect all the time.

Danny smiles. "Good," he says simply. "I'm glad." His eyes are soft with love and warmth.

For some reason, that right there is the moment he comes closest to telling Danny everything.

* * *

Saul drops by unexpectedly, less than two weeks after he visits Danny. He suspects that Danny has said something to get him worried, though he really doesn't know what.

Sitting down to dinner with Saul and Isabel together is a peculiar sort of agony. The bruise around his eye is fresh and dark, and his lip still stings if he smiles. He smiles regardless, and keeps the conversation flowing, and pretends he doesn't see how they're watching him.

Saul doesn't say anything till late into the night. Then he looks Rusty straight in the eye and asks "What happened?"

He grins. "I never did learn to keep my mouth shut. You know that."

Next to him, she grows tense. Without looking, he cannot tell if it's anger or guilt, but then, he knows it doesn't make much difference anyway. The result is always the same.

It isn't as if Saul is expecting a complete and comprehensive answer anyway. They've known each other far too long for that. But he nods and looks at Rusty more closely. "Is it going to happen again?"

_Yes._ A thousand times, yes. Beyond all doubt. But Saul can't know that, and he can't lie to Saul.

" _No,_ " Isabel says fiercely, before Rusty has even managed to form a thought.

Saul turns and smiles at her with warm approval and for a moment Rusty thinks...

Just for a moment. Then he realises that Saul assumes that she is promising to take care of him. To protect him and keep him safe. He keeps his mouth shut. Stupidly, the night still stings like betrayal. Anyone would think he wants to get caught.

* * *

He doesn't want to get caught. Oh, not because he is ashamed, or because he thinks this is his fault ( _they have already covered this, Danny,_ ) but at the least, there is no advantage to being seen as the victim. He hates being stared at, and he hates pity even more. Besides, whatever anyone says, there is still a stigma attached to this. Any man who admits his girlfriend beats him up had better expect a certain amount of whispers and laughter, and that's the best scenario. He has experience of that, when they argue in the mall one time and she turns round and punches him. It is the first time she has ever hit him in public, and it is a shock. Seconds later, mall security are there and they are standing between them, looking at her sympathetically and glaring at him suspiciously.

"Is everything alright, ma'am?" they ask her. "Is this man bothering you? Do you need us to call the police?"

She _is_ the police. He has his hand pressed against his cheek, trying to contain the pain. There is no doubt in their minds that he is to blame, and Isabel's eyes show a mixture of guilt and vindication.

And he wouldn't expect that from the people who matter, he doesn't think, but even they won't understand. He amuses himself for a moment picturing Linus' face at the news. All confusion and hesitation and discomfort, and trying to be politically correct at the same time as he's trying to figure out if he's being played, somehow. He has no doubt that the kid would never look at him the same way again. None of them would. No, it's better to hide.

Practicalities. So much simpler to deal with than emotion.

He buys more long sleeved shirts and takes to wearing sunglasses all the time. That is easy, no great sacrifice. But even then, anyone who sees him regularly is bound to notice _something,_ and with regret, he starts running his hotel over the phone and by email, seeing his managers once a month at most. He doesn't like it. Oh, he trusts his staff, but he has had fun making the place the way he wants it, and to give it up is...frustrating. He settles on the word, ignoring several others that spring to mind. He does resent her for that, he has to admit, but he reminds himself that she never asked him to. This all came from him, and maybe if he could just take more care about when he pisses her off, he wouldn't have to give it up.

His _other_ work is slightly more difficult to manage. It's not that she doesn't approve, exactly, but while he's working, she tends to be more...volatile. Sometimes it doesn't seem as if she's even trying to stop herself, and that hurts more than the pain. He thinks maybe it is because he was working when he cheated on her, but maybe it's simply that he gets distracted and obsessive when he's working, and he doesn't pay as much attention to her as he should. Or maybe it is just that it reminds her of her parents. He doesn't _know._ He just knows that he has to be careful, and he has to be ready to change his plans at a moment's notice. And that means he cannot work with other people too often, which is probably a good thing – it's the same problem as with his hotel staff, after all. But little by little, he is becoming isolated. The worst part might be he doesn't think she's doing it deliberately.

He has rearranged his life to suit her anger. And she still hurts him.

* * *

Sometimes he wonders what she thinks of when she hits him. It is an anger he truly does not understand. Oh, there have been times in his life when he has been driven half out of his mind by fury and the need for revenge or retaliation...but this is not that.

She breaks his wrist once, over spilled milk. She doesn't mean to, he knows, and it breaks along old fracture lines – someone else has hurt him there before, and the second time he cracks oh, so much easier. She does not leave him in the ER, and she holds his good hand and never says a word as the doctor glares at him disapprovingly, taking note of older bruising, and talks of his need to stay out of fights. He wishes he could have called Stan. But Isabel takes good care of him for the rest of the night, and they make love for what seems like hours. He feels almost whole.

Still, he doesn't understand how something so petty can make her so angry. He would have cleaned the milk up once he'd finished his cereal. What made it more important than him, even for that moment?

He doesn't ask her. She doesn't want to talk about it, and truthfully, neither does he. They are so happy for so much of the time that discussing it seems foolish. He is afraid that if they talk about it, somehow it will poison everything good in their relationship.

And it is good, make no mistake about that. Her outbursts of anger are few and far between. The rest of the time, they smile and laugh and live and love, and they are together. She does not call him names, or demean him, or make him feel stupid, or any of the things he would look at and call abuse. Her anger is straightforward and direct.

Only sometimes, when she's angry, when she hits him, it's like she doesn't really see _him._ Those are the times when she's angry at something else, and he is just...there. The punches rain down without mercy or meaning, and the anger in her eyes is cold and impersonal. It makes him feel like a piece of meat. Afterwards, when she tries to kiss him, he pulls away. At least that means the anger is his by right, and the blows might not hurt any less, but he feels cleaner.

She gets jealous, and that is something he can understand. He has cheated on her before, and she only has his word that it will not happen again. He tries to show her she has nothing to worry about, he tries to show her how very much he loves her, and they go to Tahiti and Switzerland, and she is the only one he has eyes for, and she can _see_ that, and life is good.

Somehow, it isn't good enough. ( _Somehow_ , he _isn't good enough_.) There are times when he is just talking to someone – anyone. Anything from an innocent conversation with a sales clerk to a dirty joke to make Linus blush – and she gets this look in her eyes. When they get home, she leaps on him like she has something to prove. The sex is amazing, he cannot deny that, and he responds to her as passionately and as urgently as he ever would, but it feels like she is trying to lay claim to him in a way she quite simply doesn't have to. He thinks he should feel flattered by the attention and the fierce light of desire in her eyes, and he cannot explain why he is not. He is not passive, never that, but he does let her take the lead, hoping that if she can somehow get this out of her system, things will get better for them.

And then he comes home from the Florentine job, still smiling from the joy of it all, and the spontaneous Charlie's Ticket he and Danny ran at the airport in response to the shrill woman in the loud shoes who'd been shouting at the wrong check in clerk. He is happy.

She is on top of him practically before the door closes behind him. "Did you let Ocean fuck you?"

He sighs. It has been a good five weeks. He has taken on men with guns and knives and anger management issues, and he has felt _safe._ "Can we not do this?" he asks. "I was having a really good day."

It is the wrong thing to say. He knows that before the words have left his lips.

There is some time missing from his mind, when he next opens his eyes. There is a sharp ache in his jaw, and he probes at his tooth with his tongue, a little afraid it is chipped this time. She is sitting against the wall, hunched up and watching him.

"I've never had sex with Danny," he says. He shouldn't have to say it. Not to her.

"I know," she says in a small voice. "I'm sorry."

He closes his eyes. It's funny. He can accept the beating so much easier than the accusation. _Did you let Ocean fuck you?_ Like he's a possession to be fought over. Something to be owned and fucked and set aside.

But he can hear in her voice that she really is sorry, and he has left her alone for all these weeks while he worked, and he knows that she has been lonely. In the end, he nods.

Her eyes are bright with sorrow and relief, and love above all, and she comes over and kisses him, and they have sex right there on the floor, and it feels like they are trying to chase the demons away. He is still lying in his own blood. He hides the pain deep in his mind where she will not see it.

* * *

Something changes then, and he cannot say exactly what it is. Something in him. He still loves her, she still makes him happy, but it feels like he can no longer make himself happy. He is always tired these days, and the dark bruises around his eyes are there whether she has been angry or not.

"Keep it off the face," he tells her the night before Frank, Linus and the twins are coming to town. "Keep it where I can hide it."

It is not until later, when he is trying to wrap his ribs in some way that will let him move without pain, that he considers he could have asked her not to hit him at all, just for tonight. It is not until later that he considers that maybe she could have stopped whether he asked her or not. Why is it his responsibility to keep their problems hidden?

In the end, he calls and cancels, saying he has had to go out of town unexpectedly. In the course of a two minute phone call, Frank asks if he is okay three times. He forces the smile into his voice, and when the call is done, he lets the phone fall to the ground. It is suddenly too heavy, and he is too weary.

Isabel is watching him from the doorway. She doesn't say a word. He spends the weekend in bed, and she brings him hot chocolate, and peanut butter jelly sandwiches, and she lies next to him, her arms around him as they watch old Disney movies, and it all ends with happy ever after. There is a weight on his chest and it's killing him. He buries his face in her hair and wishes she will protect him.

* * *

He has to leave for a few days. Basher has a safety deposit box that needs moving. It is an easy thing, only takes the two of them a few hours, plus half a day's prep time.

He stays with Basher afterwards, for a night of drinking and movies. He takes his jacket off as he walks through the door and starts to casually drop it over the chair before he catches himself and hangs it up properly. When he turns round, Basher is laughing.

"What?" he asks, ready to grin at the joke.

"Never thought I'd see you being so _tidy,_ mate," Basher says cheerfully. "Guess Isabel's really got you beaten into shape."

The grin freezes. He stares at the jacket for a moment. He has changed. He knows he has changed. But this is a _good_ change, right? Picking up after himself more...that's something anyone would want him to do. Hell, he should be able to do that without it being...beaten into him.

He drinks the whisky Basher offers him so fast he doesn't even taste it.

* * *

He hesitates on the doorstep when he gets in. He does that every time three days. Just stands there for a few seconds, keys in hand, taking a deep breath like he has to convince himself that it is safe to go inside. And that's crazy. This is his home. If he feels safe anywhere it should be here.

Of course he understands why he doesn't. It isn't exactly rocket science, after all. He is afraid because she hurts him...it's just that he doesn't want to be. He promised that he could be strong. He promised that he wouldn't let it matter, that he understood that the love was so much more important than anything else. And now he's struggling to keep those promises, and even if it was himself he made them to, he still knows he is letting her down.

This time she greets him warmly as she walks in.

"You're back," she smiles. "How was it?"

"Fine," he says, walking over and kissing her. "Basher's all set."

"Good." She reaches up and strokes his face and tension flashes through him for a second before he relaxes. It's fine. This is going to be a good night.

She notices his reaction and her eyes are full of hurt. Even as he is offering the silent apology, some part of him is scanning her expression carefully, searching for any sign that hurt is going to turn to anger.

"I thought we could order Chinese tonight," she suggests brightly, and he can hear the love and patience and gentle support beneath her words. "Then we can maybe head to bed and see what happens."

He grins slowly. "Sounds good."

It is going to be a good night.

There are many good nights still. She has noticed the changes – how could she not? - and he thinks she thinks he is traumatised in some way. She takes care with him, but she doesn't treat him like glass, and the only thing that makes it different from...the only thing that makes it different is that she doesn't ask if he wants to talk about it. And the fact that her patience is not unlimited, and when he is hurt and unhappy and she cannot help, she gets frustrated. Angry. He does not stop her. She does not stop.

It is getting worse, he acknowledges dully. What once was every few weeks is now most weeks, and one or two punches have become several. Sometimes when it's bad, he catches himself dizzily wondering what he has done to deserve this. That frightens him. Enough that one time, with blood pouring from the cut above his eye, he locks himself in the bathroom and calls Danny.

He doesn't know what he is going to say. Perhaps he just wants to check that he _doesn't_ deserve this. But Danny's answerphone reminds him that Danny and Tess are on holiday in Florence, and by the time Danny returns the call, Isabel has iced his bruises, bought him breakfast, held him close and told him again that she didn't _mean_ it, and he is able to truthfully tell Danny that calling him was just a mistake, nothing more.

He can hear in Danny's voice that Danny is unconvinced and he must talk very fast indeed to prevent Danny cutting short his vacation.

Isabel will not look at him as he puts the phone away.

* * *

Sometimes, he thinks there is something desperately wrong with him. He has always been hyper aware, always noticed all the details no one else ever seems to, but now it feels like it is overwhelming him. It is difficult to cut through the clutter in his head, and he is constantly on edge, wired in all the wrong ways, tensing at a threat that simply is not there.

Livingston notices in Atlantic City, while they are still watching the contractors work. He jumps at the sound of his own phone, and then fumbles and almost drops it while he is trying to read the message. When he looks up, Livingston is studying him with a frown, paying more attention than he was to the casino floor.

"Uh, Rusty? You seem kinda, uh...nervous." It is not a question. That does not mean he doesn't have to answer.

He picks up an empty can of Red Bull from the table and grins. The unaccustomed smile hurts his face. "Few too many of these," he explains.

Livingston looks unconvinced. "That's your second, isn't it?"

"Fifth," he lies quickly, and he turns his attention to the monitors before Livingston can say anything else. "Huh. Isn't that one of Benedict's guys?"

He is relieved when Livingston falls for the distraction. He does not want to explain anything. Shame has taken root in his stomach. He finds himself thinking longingly of home.

* * *

Back home and she isn't happy with him. Not with the time he's spent away, not with the company he's been keeping. "We need to talk," she says, and that never leads to anything good. He finds himself biting back on the sharp retorts and the snappy answers, and he tells himself that it is because he doesn't _want_ to argue. He's trying to be mature and reasonable. Not to mention by the time she's finished, he is no longer absolutely certain that he hasn't done anything wrong. He has left her alone on her week off to spend time doing a favour for an ex-lover. Put like that and it makes him feel wrong and selfish and dirty, and the fact that nothing happened, and no one except her considered anything might happen does nothing to change that. He is beginning to think that maybe he should spend less time working and with his friends. He has always been the one that everyone calls, and obviously that was fine when he was single, but maybe that should change now. He wants to understand her point of view and he struggles to ignore the swell of loneliness and despair. The years stretch out in front of him, and he feels cold and tired.

This is nothing like the warm homecoming he had last week. When he stays in bed an extra hour the next day it is for very different reasons.

Isabel calls him around mid morning. She doesn't often call him from work, and he is on edge before she has said a word. "Danny just came by the office," she tells him in a loud whisper. He can hear the upset right down the phone.

He swallows hard. Danny and Isabel in the same room. The thought disturbs him, and he has to resist the urge to ask if she's alright. "What did he want?" he asks instead, his mind racing. It has been a couple of weeks since he talked to Danny, and he can't think of anything...

"He...he was worried about you," Isabel continues, and he hates the guilt and anguish in her voice. "He was talking about...do you remember when Saul came to visit and you were...hurt?" Her voice breaks slightly on the last word. "He was asking if I knew who did it, and if they could still be giving you problems."

Oh. He couldn't help the sigh of relief. So Danny didn't know the truth. But he did think Rusty was being hurt on a regular basis and that wasn't good. And he'd gone to Isabel to discuss it. His mouth is a thin line. "I'll talk to him," he promises, knowing that neither of them are going to enjoy the conversation.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, sounding on the very edge of tears. "Oh, Robert, I'm so, so sorry. I promise things will be better in the future. _I'll_ be better. I won't...I'll never..." She breaks off and he can hear her sobbing quietly.

His heart is breaking and he is indescribably angry with Danny. "Oh, Isabel," he says softly. "It's alright. It's always alright." He takes a deep breath. "Why don't you see if you can get away early, huh? We can go to the beach. Take some time to really relax."

"Okay," she says shakily. He longs to look after her.

It is barely five minutes from when he hangs up the phone to when he hears the knock on the door. He opens it slowly, not surprised to see Danny. The anger is still bright and cold.

For a second they say nothing. Danny is studying him carefully, and Rusty is glad there's nothing on his face right now. Nonetheless, they both know there's something badly wrong here.

"We need to talk" Danny begins casually. "Apparently Dominic's got Saul worried about Reuben. There's some casino arms race going on between Benedict and Bank, and Reuben's getting pressure to get involved."

He hadn't heard. There was a time when he heard all the news first. And Saul had called Danny, not him. "His pride getting the better of him?" he asks, momentarily diverted, because this doesn't sound like a good plan at all.

"Yeah," Danny nods, responding more to what he hasn't said than what he has. "I'm going to go down there to talk to him. Want to come with? I'm sure we'd be more persuasive together."

When weren't they? For a moment he was tempted, no matter how angry he was with Danny, because this was Reuben, and it was important, but he'd just got through realising he had to stop running off every five minutes. "Can't," he says tightly. "I've got plans."

"Oh, yeah? What sort of plans?" Danny presses immediately, his eyes fixed on Rusty's face.

He smiles coldly. "Well, you should know. You're the one keeping tabs on me, right?"

Danny sighs. "Rusty - "

" - you can't have thought she wouldn't tell me," he interrupts harshly.

There is a pause. Danny blinks at him. "Of course I knew she'd tell you," he says. "Why wouldn't she tell you? Hell, I would have told you, I just..." He takes a deep breath. "We're worried about you. Me, Isabel, Saul, Livingston...what's going on, Rus'?"

"Nothing," he snaps, feeling sick at the idea of all of them talking about him, and if Danny keeps on pushing, if Danny finds out the truth, then nothing will ever be the same again. And Danny has been going behind his back, checking up on him, and it hurts and he feels betrayed. "Get out," he says softly.

"What?" Danny asks, incredulously.

"Just go." His voice sounds harsh, even to him, and he turns away. He can't stand to look at Danny right now, and he doesn't know whose fault that is.

"Rusty..." He doesn't see Danny reach out towards him, and the hand on his arm makes him jump, his heartrate spiking. He flinches back away from the touch, looking round at Danny fearfully, his mouth suddenly dry.

For a long moment they just stare at each other. They both know he should not be afraid right now. No matter what is going on in his life, he has never been afraid of Danny before. There is an uncomprehending frown on Danny's face, like he is struggling to understand. "Rus'...?"

He swallows hard. "Look, Danny, just go, okay? You've been going around behind my back, upsetting Isabel...I don't know what's going on in your head, but whatever it is, I don't want any part of it."

" _Upsetting_ her?" Danny repeats slowly, the frown deepening. "I don't..."

He doesn't want Danny thinking about Isabel. And even more importantly, he needs to get Danny out of here before Isabel gets back, and somehow he is opening the door and glaring at Danny until he leaves, his eyes dark and troubled. With a sigh, Rusty leans back against the door, and he can imagine Danny doing the same on the other side. There is an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach.

* * *

They do go to the beach in the end, and they drink wine and watch the sunset and she is smiling and happy, guilt long forgotten. But it has been a stressful day, for both of them, and the traffic on the way back is bad, and he still cannot tell when clever lines aren't funny.

Just as an experiment, he whispers "Stop. Please."

He tells himself she does not hear him. It has been such a long time since he cried. He is afraid that this is all there is left.

* * *

It is raining on the day it all ends. He is soaked when he walks through the door. Cold, and miserable, and the pain makes him move like a man thirty years older, and it takes him a moment before he realises there is someone in the living room, watching him, waiting for him.

"We need to talk," the familiar voice says.

He closes his eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

The first time Danny really meets Isabel he is worried about her breaking Rusty's heart. He can see the way she looks at him; she thinks she has him all figured out, but the truth Danny knows is that Rusty is endlessly unpredictable, even after a lifetime spent together, and he isn't so sure that is a life Isabel can accept. "She thinks she knows you," he tries to warn Rusty – with reluctance, because Rusty is looking for approval here and Danny can't quite give it. "She thinks she has you all figured out."

"I know her," Rusty offers quietly.

"Yeah," Danny says slowly, because what else can he say? He knows Rusty loves her, and what's more he can see she loves him, and Danny is enough of a romantic that he wants them to make it work.

Besides. Above all else, he wants Rusty happy.

* * *

For a long time all his worries seem to be for nothing. Sure, he and Rusty don't see each other as much as they used to, and that will always feel strange, but they both have other people in their lives now, and they live on different sides of the country, and besides there are always phone calls at least once a week and sometimes multiple times a day. Point _is_ they're both happy, and then there is the Bank job and six months spent together, and the shine hasn't diminished one bit, and the last of Danny's worry melts away.

It's maybe a couple of months after that when Frank C. calls him, all apology and hesitation, hating every minute of confidence-breaking, to say that there had been a job for Frank's brother-in-law, and in order to make it work and keep them all safe, Rusty has slept with Lizzie Prior. Danny swallows his outrage and listens as Frank tells him that Rusty had gone home to tell Isabel two days ago, and Frank's been calling him but Rus' hasn't been picking up. That's never good, and it's all he can do to keep his voice calm and relaxed as he promises Frank he'll take care of it.

He calls Rusty immediately. It is a relief when Rusty answers, but he can hear the note of wrongness beneath the bright voice. "So, what's up?"

"Frank called me," Danny began. "He told me what you did."

Rusty sighs. "Oh. Right."

"How are you doing?" he asks.

There is a pause, and he can _hear_ Rusty weighing up what to say, trying to judge how little truth he can get away with.

"You only do _that_ when you're trying to hide something," he says wryly.

"Things could be better," Rusty admits. "But they could be worse."

"How'd she take it?" he asks.

"How do you think?" Rusty answers.

He grimaces. Yeah. He can't even imagine. And part of him wants to remind Rusty that he doesn't like it either and that Rusty should have known better, should have called him maybe, because there is _always_ another way, but that isn't what Rusty needs to hear right now. "I'm sorry," he says instead, and he wants to be there for Rusty, wants to reach out to touch, to reassure...

"Think that's my line," Rusty says. "We talked...she's going to forgive me, but right now things aren't..." He sighs again.

"You want me to fly down?" Danny offers, reacting to the tired hurt in Rusty's voice.

"Nah," Rusty says easily. "Think it would be better if me and Isabel had some time to ourselves."

That...makes sense. Some arguments should really stay between the people involved. Still, not being able to do anything to help chafes at Danny's soul. "You need me, I'm always here," he says softly.

"I know," Rusty says, a fond smile in his voice. "Really, Danny, I think things are going to be alright. I promise."

* * *

There are little things that slowly bring the worry back. Nothing that Danny can point to with absolute certainty as being _wrong,_ and yet every time he talks to Rusty he gets the feeling that Rusty is trying too hard to convince him everything is fine. And when they are actually together, when Tess and Isabel are both out of town, when there is whisky and ice-cream and movies and everything that should be a normal kind of wonderful, Rusty is smiling and light-hearted and carefree and that wouldn't be a problem except there is a curve to Rusty's lips, the slightest shadow beneath his eyes, and it suggests that the wonder is more of a surprise than it should be.

And Danny can't help but look at him, searching for reasons, for explanations, and he tries to be subtle, but he notices Rusty noticing, and he sees Rusty looking at him like he's contemplating something.

"Everything okay?" he asks quietly staring unseeing at the TV. He wants to give Rusty all the room he could possibly need.

But Rusty doesn't even stop to think before answering. "Sure," he says easily, and he isn't listening to Danny, he isn't _talking._

Now Danny looks straight at Rusty, silently reminding Rusty that he's here, that he's always ready to listen, that Rusty never needs to hide from him and when he asks the question he means so much more than _right at this moment._ "Rus'. Is everything okay?"

Rusty pauses for a second, his lips parted, his head tilted to one side, and maybe it isn't a simple question, but at least Rusty is thinking about it. "Yes," he says at last, softly. "Yes. I'm happy."

There's truth in his words, Danny can tell. Rusty is happy, and isn't that everything Danny wants? He feels himself relax and he smiles gently. "Good," he says simply. "I'm glad."

He is glad, of course. He's no more lying than Rusty is. And still, somehow, for some reason, the next time he talks to Saul he suggests that maybe Saul should go pay Rusty a visit and keep an eye on him.

A week or so after that, Saul tells him that Rusty has been hurt. And Saul – and later Rusty – assure him that it's alright, that it's just bruises and they're all healing fine, and it's not like Danny would ever have expected Rusty to admit to having been hurt unless he had to, and Saul says it's over and Isabel is looking after him...and Danny still feels that sense of _wrongness._

It is another piece in a jigsaw puzzle he can't begin to see the shape of.

* * *

There is a part of him that can't help but lay the blame at Isabel's door. There was a time when he didn't need to ask if Rusty was happy, and that was before Isabel, and he wonders if she's really forgiven him the way Rus' says she has. This quiet not-quite-awkwardness bothers him, and surely Isabel has to see it too. After all, she's the one who sees him every day...

"Maybe you're jealous," Tess suggests as he worries. Her eyes are soft and sympathetic as she looks at him. "You're not used to having to share Rusty with anyone after all."

"Mmm," he says quietly. It's a thought that has occurred to him before. He doesn't like to think he has that in him. "I like Isabel though."

Tess smiles gently. "It's not easy you know, Danny. Knowing that the person you love also loves someone else."

Slowly, he reaches out and takes her hand. That's something Tess would know all about, of course. "Did you...?" he asks hesitantly, for once not even sure he wants to know the answer.

"It took some getting used to," Tess admits, looking at him intently. "But Danny, it was worth it. You know it was."

Yeah. It really was. He sighs and nods and determines to resist the urge to interfere, and Rusty smiles through all the twists and turns of the Florentine job, and the questions take a back-seat in Danny's mind.

That's the thing though. When Rusty is there with him, when Rusty is working, everything seems simple and carefree. It's the other times, the times he's not there for, that everything seems wrong. Like when Linus casually mentions that Rusty blew him off the last time he, Frank and the twins were in Vegas. Just called them up half an hour after they were supposed to meet and said he couldn't make it, that he'd had to go out of town unexpectedly. Only Danny remembers that he'd called Rusty a day or so _after_ that, and Rusty hadn't mentioned a thing, and besides, Rusty is reliability made flesh.

A few weeks later, chance has him talking to the bartender at the Standard while he's waiting for Rusty and Isabel, and the guy mentions how much they miss Rusty being around, that this is the first time they've seen him in months, and Danny frowns because he knows Rusty loves his hotel, and he can't understand, and when he asks Rusty just shrugs and smiles faintly and says "Got bored," and the lie is obvious, and Isabel's face gives away nothing.

And then he's in Florence, with Tess. They go to the opera and then back to the hotel, and he is so caught up in the night and with her that for once he forgets to switch his phone back on till morning. There is a missed call from Rusty. No message, and he is worried by that. Rusty doesn't phone just to talk when he knows Danny is spending time with Tess, and if it was anything less than serious he'd have left a voicemail - a 'call me' at the very least.

A sense of foreboding grips him, and even while he's calling Rusty back he is imagining all the awful things he might have missed. But when Rusty answers he is bright and upbeat and apologetic for the phone call, and he promises it was nothing. It was something at the time though, and when Danny presses he admits to a fight with Isabel and feeling insecure. He is vague about the details, and with reluctance Danny doesn't pry. He knows what it's like to walk the line between the natural desire to share everything, and the knowledge that there are some things that the woman you love wouldn't want shared.

In spite of all his protests, Rusty sounds tired and Danny says he will cut his vacation short. He doesn't mean to be persuaded otherwise. But Rusty is quick and sincere, and he promises a dozen times that he is fine now, and it is all just one of those things, and there is nothing of the wistful in his voice. He really doesn't want Danny there right now, and Danny has to trust that he knows what he is doing though.

He worries, though. He worries all the time.

But Livingston's call is what finally tips him over the edge of what he can bear to let go. Like Frank's two years ago, Livingston's voice is hesitant and reluctant. Everyone in their little circle is about loyalty, and even with the best motives, betrayal is awful.

"Um," Livingston starts, and Danny waits patiently. "I wasn't sure whether to call you. I mean, I thought maybe I was imagining things, and then I thought maybe I _wasn't_ and I figured you probably knew already but then I wondered..." He trails off and starts over again a second later. "Okay. I was working with Rusty on a job a few days ago and I think maybe something's wrong."

"Wrong?" Danny repeats sharply, all the old worry setting the back of his neck prickling. He takes a deep breath. "What do you mean?"

Encouraged, Livingston talks quickly, words falling over each other. "Well, he seemed jumpy. Kind of nervous, I mean. He dropped his phone a couple of times, and he sort of startled when someone slammed a door, and I swear after we pushed our way out of the fire alarm crowd, he was as white as chalk."

Danny doesn't know what to say. His brow furrows; Rusty doesn't _do_ nervous. Not like that. Oh, frightened, sure, Danny has seen him frightened. But not what Livingston is describing. Not for a very long time. And yet he can't doubt Livingston's story – after all, Livingston knows nerves.

"There's more," Livingston goes on, even more hesitantly. "All the time we were there, Rusty was wearing long sleeves. I mean, the temperature was...it seemed odd. But I didn't really think anything of it – I don't normally question Rus' fashion choices. Only then his sleeve slipped a bit while he was helping me carry my equipment downstairs and I saw...I thought I saw..."

" _What_?" Danny asks, struggling to sound patient even though there is a razor edge beneath his voice.

"Bruises," Livingston says uncomfortably. "Down his arms. There were a lot of them."

Danny is silent.

"I didn't say anything to him," Livingston says hurriedly. "It was just a glimpse – he didn't even notice me noticing, and I thought maybe..." There is a pause. "I _should_ have said something," he adds guiltily. "I should have confronted him."

"He wouldn't have told you anything," Danny assures him, smiling humourlessly at the picture. Rusty never tells anyone anything unless he wants to.

As he hangs up the phone with more promises that he'll fix everything, Danny is thinking about the bruises Saul saw two years back. Getting beaten up twice in as years...it's not _good,_ but it's not unprecedented in their line of work, even if Rusty is generally good enough to avoid that sort of thing. But the nervousness Livingston was talking about. That's something else. To get that sort of reaction – in _Rusty –_ Danny thinks it must have been very bad or very frequent. And he is sure that if it was that bad he would have known about it before now so that leaves him with the idea that Someone Rusty has angered is using him as his own personal plaything, hurting him and then letting him get on with his life, and then hurting him again until Rusty is so tired and soulweary that he can't tell where safe is anymore.

It is a terrifying thought. And one that doesn't quite make sense. Because yes, he can accept that Rusty wouldn't necessarily tell him what was going on out of some misguided urge to protect him – but if that's the case, why is Rusty still living in LA? With Isabel? Surely Rusty would want to protect _her_ even more than he wants to protect Danny?

He doesn't have all the pieces to this puzzle yet. But he needs to figure it out. Now.

* * *

After a brief moment's thought, he decides not to confront Rusty immediately. This will be so much easier if he already has most of the facts. Rusty might not be able to lie directly to Danny's face, but he can stonewall with the best of them.

Instead, he talks to Saul and Frank and Basher and Livingston, going over every detail no matter how insignificant, and then he goes to LA and corners Isabel at work, and they talk in her office.

He doesn't know what he's expecting. She isn't particularly pleased to see him, he can tell, and she is nervous, but she insists she doesn't know anything.

He might ask how she could live in the same house and not know what's going on but, well, Danny more than anyone knows all the things you can keep from the woman you love if you really try.

Still, he suspects Isabel knows more than she's telling him. She admits to seeing the bruises but she's evasive when he asks for more details. He can see the love and worry in her eyes. She is protecting Rusty and he can't blame her for that.

"We both want him safe," he tells her softly before he leaves. "We both care about him. Whatever's going on, I can help. I'll do whatever it takes to make this right, I swear it."

She watches him leave, but she doesn't say anything.

* * *

He has a key of course, but he hesitates in front of Rusty's door with it in his hand. Right now, just walking in like he usually would doesn't seem quite right. Instead, he knocks, and Rusty opens the door slowly. His eyes are fixed on Danny's face and the anger there is bright and cold and Danny doesn't understand it. For a long moment he's afraid Rusty won't let him in at all.

"We need to talk," he says when the silence has stretched on a little too long, and he can't come at this head on, he can't, because Rusty is just standing there, waiting for an excuse to pick a fight, and Danny has no idea what he's supposed to have done wrong. "Apparently Dominic's got Saul worried about Reuben. There's some casino arms race going on between Benedict and Bank, and Reuben's getting pressured to get involved." It was something Saul had mentioned while he was asking about Rusty. And sure, Saul had said that he'd take care of it, but it was as good a lead in as any.

Certainly Rusty seems momentarily diverted. "His pride getting the better of him?" he asks, his brow creased.

"Yeah," Danny nods. "I'm going down there to talk to him. Want to come with? I'm sure we'd be more persuasive together."

They always are, after all. And he can see the flicker of temptation in Rusty's eyes, followed immediately by determination and regret. "Can't," he says shortly. "Got plans."

Plans. Plans that are more important than Reuben being in trouble, or Saul being worried, or _Danny..._ "Oh yeah?" he presses, looking Rusty straight in the eyes. "What sort of plans?" He can't help but imagine the 'Someone' he'd thought of earlier. Someone hurting Rusty.

There is a pause and when Rusty smiles it is cold and harsh and angry. "Well, you should know. You're the one keeping tabs on me, right?"

He sighs. Of course Rusty would find out. Hell, Rusty probably knew he was coming before he did. "Rus' - "

"You can't have thought she wouldn't tell me," Rusty cuts in and the anger stops Danny dead.

She... _Isabel?_ He blinks. "Of course I knew she'd tell you," he says, confused. He'd never dreamed for a second that she wouldn't. Hell, he'd never intended that she wouldn't. She's Rusty's girlfriend, he understands that. "Why wouldn't she tell you? Hell, I would have told you. I just..." This is what it comes down to. He takes a deep breath, his fist clenched. "We're worried about you," he says, soft and sincere and pleading. "Me, Isabel, Saul, Livingston...what's going on, Rus'?"

Rusty doesn't even hesitate. Doesn't even stop to consider what Danny's saying. "Nothing," he snaps defensively. "Get out."

"What?" he breathes, hurt and shocked, and Rusty turns away, not even able to look at him.

"Just go," Rusty says and he's trying to sound angry, trying to sound tough, but Danny can hear the rawness and the fragility and he can't stand it.

He needs to reach out and touch. To make this real. It is a physical ache, but the second he touches Rusty's arm, Rusty jumps, tensing like he's terrified, and he draws away, and the look in his eyes as he whirls round towards Danny...

This doesn't make sense. He doesn't understand...this doesn't make _sense._

"Rus'?" he whispers uncertainly.

"Look, Danny, just go, okay?" Rusty says, the tension still forced across his shoulders. You've been going around behind my back, upsetting Isabel...I don't know what's going on in your head, but whatever it is, I don't want any part of it."

His brain is still struggling to catch up, and now this doesn't make any sense either. " _Upsetting_ her," he repeats stupidly. What has he done to upset Isabel? There's no reason she would be upset with him, she would surely be saving all the upset for whoever is hurting Rusty. "I don't..." He trails off. Rusty doesn't allow him to finish. In a dream – a nightmare – he is forced outside, away from Rusty.

The door slams behind him. He leans against it, his head tilted back. If he tries, he can imagine Rusty standing on the other side in the exact same position. For a moment he waits, hoping that Rusty might relent and let him in. But he already knows that's not gonna happen.

What the hell just happened here? How has everything gone this wrong this quickly?

( _Only it hasn't been quick, has it? This has been building for a long time._ )

With a last, longing look at the front door he walks away. Maybe he should give Rusty some space for a few days. Let him calm down before he approaches him again. Let him make the first move. Except he's never been that good at sitting and doing nothing.

Instead, he parks his rental car a way down the street and sits and waits and watches, he's not even sure for _what._

Isabel comes home about an hour later. Even at this distance she does look upset, and that should be making Danny feel guilty, but he still can't figure out what he's supposed to have done. He's still wondering when she and Rusty reappear a few minutes later. Rusty's arm is slung comfortably around her shoulder. They look the picture of loving contentment as they get in the car and drive off.

Danny follows at a safe distance, hoping that maybe they're going to lead him to some clue as to what's going on. He's not surprised to be disappointed. They drive to the beach and spend the rest of the afternoon and well into the evening there, and they would be the picture of a relaxed and happy couple...except even though Danny is spying on them from so far back he risks losing them in the crowd, he can still see that the tension in Rusty's shoulders hasn't faded.

He frowns; Rusty is tense like he's expecting trouble. And from everything Danny suspects that certainly makes sense...except if Rusty is expecting to be attacked he would be alert to everything around him. Which means _he would see Danny._ This doesn't make sense.

It is dark when he follows them home. He doesn't know what he was hoping for, but there hasn't been anything that helps. He winces as Isabel slams the car door and storms into the house, obviously angry, and Rusty takes a moment or two before following at a casual saunter. Yeah, Danny doubts _that's_ going to calm her down any. God, he hopes that wasn't about him. He didn't mean to cause any trouble between them; he's always been careful.

Determined, he goes and finds a hotel room – not at the Standard, he isn't sure how well that would go down – and starts making calls. A hundred different ways to ask if Rusty might be in trouble, if anyone might be gunning for him, what he's been working on in the past couple of years, and none of it brings back any results. Oh, he gets a couple of names of people Rusty has conned or stolen from who might go after him if they could, but when he investigates nothing suggests that they have the first clue who Rusty is. With a clenched jaw he even checks out people they've gone after together – Bank, Florentine, hell even Terry Benedict – in case they've somehow decided to target just Rusty. But everything is quite there too.

With a sigh, he stretches out on the bed and checks his phone. He's been at this for thirty six hours now. He'd been hoping that Rusty would call him at some point. He can't imagine that Rusty likes this any more than he does. And if Rusty has decided that this distance beats the alternative then something is very wrong.

Sighing again, he rubs the back of his hand across his eyes. He can't stop thinking about the moment when he reached for Rusty and Rusty jumped away. No, not jumped. That's the wrong word. Let's call it what it is; Rusty _flinched._ Flinched. Away from him.

It's something he can't understand. Rusty has never been afraid of him like that, because he knows that Danny loves him.

( _Except._ )

He sits bolt upright. What if love isn't enough anymore? What if being loved doesn't mean being safe?

He'd thought before that he'd never had to wonder if Rusty was happy before Isabel came on the scene. What if there's an obvious explanation for that? All the bruises, cancelling plans at the last minute, being alert to danger but not looking at the outside world...all the puzzle pieces fit, and Danny feels sick. Rusty had even said he didn't want Isabel upset. And she _has_ been, he remembers with growing horror. The last time he'd seen them, she'd been angry. And if he's right, that means...that _means..._

He claps his hand across his mouth and resists the urge to run for the bathroom. He doesn't know anything yet. Not for sure. Yes, the facts fit, but he knows the people here and he wants to say this couldn't happen. But actually, it's frighteningly easy to imagine Isabel lashing out. She's volatile and passionate, and he can imagine that turning to uncontrolled anger and violence in the right wrong circumstances. But then why would Rusty ever even consider putting up with that? Rusty has experience of abuse, in another life back when they were kids. He _knows_ what isn't acceptable. So why wouldn't he just leave her? Why wouldn't he...

Oh. He takes a sharp breath. _Oh._ The answer is both simple and horrifying. He loves her. He loves her and he doesn't know how to stop.

Danny has fallen out of love before. There were women before Tess, and a few – not many, but a few – he felt strongly about, felt that there could be something that would last forever, _loved._ And he knows how it feels when that love fades, and it is painful and it is awful, but he has done it.

Rusty...to Danny's knowledge, Rusty has loved three people in his life. And he loves them still.

* * *

He heads straight round to Rusty's of course. No plan, no clue what he's going to say, no idea what he's going to do if Isabel is there, but how can he do anything else?

But there is no one home. The driveway is empty and the house is dark, and Danny could scream in frustration. They could be anywhere. She could be hurting Rus' right now, and he wouldn't _know_. He has to find them and he has no idea where to start, and his hand slams against the car window. Dammit.

The fury whispers through him. Everything he's been trying not to think of. She is hurting Rusty. Rus' loves her and trusts her, and she _hurts_ him. And two days ago she looked Danny right in the eye and she said she had no idea where the bruises come from, and she'd agreed they both want to protect Rusty, and all that time _she'd_ been the one hurting him. When Danny finds her...his fist clenches.

God. Where are they? He drags his hands through his hair frustratedly and punches the steering wheel. Okay. This is Rusty's home. Sooner or later, he'll come back here and Danny can be waiting. In the meantime, he has to calm down or he'll ruin everything.

He takes a deep breath, takes his phone out of his pocket and makes the call.

She answers after four rings, sounding out of breath. She must have been in another room. "Hello?"

"Tess," he says softly, his eyes closed, the phone pressed firmly against his face, like he's trying to capture her voice.

"Danny? What's wrong?" Her voice is sharp with worry. "Are you...are you hurt?"

"No," he assures her with difficulty. "No, it's not that."

"Then what's wrong?" she asks again and obviously she knows that something is. He has lied to her, in his time, but that doesn't mean he can hide from her. "Tell me. Please."

"You know I would never hurt you, right?" The words burst out of him before he's had time to consider. But right now, he needs her to know.

"Of course," she says, sounding shocked and horrified, and she's living in a world where the thought would never even enter her mind. "Danny, what - "

" - I would never hurt you," he says again, his voice hoarse and raw. "And if I ever did, I would want you to leave. Right away. Leave and not look back, no matter what."

There is the briefest of pauses. "I know, Danny," she says gently. "I know. I've never thought otherwise. Where is this coming from. Did..." She pauses again and he can hear her thinking, and when she next speaks it's a horrified whisper. "Did Rusty...no! I can't believe it. He wouldn't - "

" - of course he wouldn't," Danny snarls, and the fact that Tess – that _anyone –_ could assume that Rusty was hitting Isabel was enough to make him angry all over again.

"Then what..." She trails off. "Oh, God," she says, and he hears her swallow hard and he thinks that maybe she gets it.

"I can't talk about it, Tess," he warns. That isn't why he called. "I don't know anything for sure yet. I just...I'm waiting for Rusty to come home, and I needed to hear your voice."

"Of course." She hesitates again. "Is he hurt?"

Danny bites his lip. "Hope not," he says, and he tries to make it sound light, like the answer is _probably not_ and the pictures playing through his head just won't stop.

"Go do what you have to do," she tells him. "And I'll get the spare room ready, for if you need it."

He smiles. "Thank you," he says, and when he says his goodbyes and hangs up the phone, he might not be any less angry, but he's more grounded. He can do what he has to do.

He lets himself into the house. And sits. And waits.

* * *

It starts raining, which suits Danny's mood perfectly. He sits and watches it stream down the living room window, one eye always on the open door to the hallway so he can't fail to see the moment when the front door finally opens and Rusty steps in.

"We need to talk," Danny says and Rusty closes his eyes in resignation and the movement lets Danny see the dark bruises down one side of his face, the lines of pain and exhaustion... He takes a deep breath, his fingernails digging into his palm. This isn't what he wanted to see. This is never what he wants to see. He's on his feet in an instant, hurrying to take Rusty's arm. "Come sit down," he says gently, his heart aching.

Rusty only resists very slightly, as he drops the grocery bag in the doorway and follows Danny through to the living room and the sofa.

"Where's Isabel," he asks evenly, avoiding the accusation with an effort.

"At work," Rusty tells him, his fingers twisting together. He is soaked to the skin. "She won't be home till tonight. Danny - "

" - later," he cuts in quickly, because there is a strange look in Rusty's eyes, a wildness, and Danny remembers the last time they talked. He can't risk Rusty throwing him out this time. Rusty is exhausted; as long as Danny is calm, Rusty will follow his example. Neither of them want to fight.

"Here," he says, as he fetches a towel and gently dries Rusty's face and hair. "Easy," he murmurs, as he carefully helps Rusty wriggle out of his wet jacket, taking note of every tiny motion of pain. Rusty doesn't say anything, just gazes at Danny, content to be taken care of so far.

So far and no further. When Danny brings through an ice pack and says "Tilt your head back for me," he stirs.

"Isabel already took care of that," he tells Danny. "Last night."

"Did she?" Danny asks without inflection. In his head he sees Isabel lashing out and then playing the devoted girlfriend. It is a sickening picture. "Your cheek's still very swollen."

Rusty's lips are a thin line, but he accepts Danny pressing the ice against his face. "It'll heal."

His hand is trembling. "Just like always," he agrees hoarsely.

There is silence for a moment, and Rusty places his hand on Danny's tentatively. "It's not what you think," he says.

"Mmm." The tension across his shoulders is starting to hurt. "Let's get your shirt off. I want to take a look - "

" - I told you, Isabel already took care of me," Rusty interrupts sharply. "Danny. It's not what you think."

He sighs. This is as far as 'later' can take them. He is crouched down in front of Rusty, rocked back on his heels to regard him evenly. "Really," he says. "Because I'm thinking that Isabel hit you." His voice is as gentle as he can make it, but Rusty still turns his head aside and draws his hand away.

"Where did you come up with that?" He doesn't quite manage to sound shocked.

Danny just watches him steadily. "I figured it out," he says.

Rusty nods a couple of times. He doesn't try to deny it more. There's no point in him trying to deny it more; at this distance he can't hope to hide the truth. Not from Danny. "It's not what you think though," he says again wearily.

There is something in Rusty's voice that speaks of familiarity. "How many times have we had this conversation?" he asks.

"A few," Rusty shrugs.

He nods a couple of times. He supposes at least that means Rusty has been questioning this. "Do I ever win?"

Rusty smiles crookedly. "You ever had, we might just have been having it outside my head before now."

Danny is irrationally angry at the him-that-live-in-Rusty's head. He should have been able to argue better. This isn't right, he says softly. "She's got no right to treat you that way."

Rusty's eyes are cold as he stands up, stretching slowly, the ice pack falling across the sofa. "I know," he says simply as he carefully tidies up the ice and the towel and carries them through to the kitchen.

_I know?_ Frowning, Danny follows him quickly and stands watching as Rusty drops the ice into the sink. "You _know?_ " he echoes. "But then why - "

"I know she shouldn't hit me, Danny," Rusty says firmly as he turns round. "It's wrong and I don't deserve it. I understand that and I believe it. But here's the thing, I can also live with it."

This is...this is crazy. Danny desperately searches for surer footing. "You shouldn't have to live with it," he argues.

"I don't _have_ to, I'm _choosing_ to," Rusty tells him sharply.

"How long has it been going on?" he tries.

Rusty hesitates. "Few years," he says briefly over his shoulder as he walks back into the hall.

"She's been hurting you for years?" Danny asks, horrified beyond reason. "Why didn't you _tell_ me?"

Rusty picks up the bag of groceries and straightens up with a barely perceptible wince. "Because I didn't want to have this conversation," he snaps. "I still don't, in case you haven't noticed." He starts to reach for the other bag.

"Leave the fucking groceries, Rus'," Danny explodes, frustrated.

There is a flinch, slight but definite and agony. But Rusty stands his ground, the paper bag still clutched ridiculously to his chest. "I have to put them away," he says softly. "They're...untidy." There is something in Rusty's eyes. He's begging Danny to understand. And Danny does. Oh, it makes him feel sick, but he _understands_ and anger dissolves into sorrow.

"Of course," he says gently, stepping forwards and taking the bag out of Rusty's hands. "Whatever you need. But you go to the kitchen and sit down, okay? You need to rest. I'll put these away and you can tell me where everything goes, okay?"

The smile is faint. "So you'll be doing the work while I supervise? Isn't that against the natural order of things?"

But when Danny brings the groceries through, Rusty is sitting at the kitchen counter, his head propped up on one hand. Danny works quickly, and once everything is put away properly he can see Rusty looking slightly less tense.

"So, untidiness, huh?" he says as he finishes up. "That's all it takes to make her hurt you?"

"That can be one of the triggers, yes," Rusty agrees evenly. "And now I prefer to put things away properly. Is there anything wrong with that?"

"Everything," Danny says at once.

Rusty sighs. "I knew you wouldn't understand."

"Then help me," he says earnestly, looking Rusty straight in the eyes. "Explain it to me."

For a long moment, Rusty just looks at him. Then he leans forwards. "Okay. First thing you need to know is that Isabel never asked me not to tell you what was going on. Keeping this a secret? That's all on me."

"And I suppose she'd have been delighted if you'd told me up front," Danny growls.

Rusty glares at him. "You want to listen, or do you want to argue?"

He shuts his mouth. He will listen. Though he can't help but notice that Rusty didn't actually answer what he said.

"Second thing is," Rusty goes on. "I know that you're thinking this is like my parents. But it isn't. She doesn't insult me, she doesn't make me feel stupid...with Isabel, it's just anger and that fades. I can deal with that. And afterwards, she takes care of me, and she's sorry and I forgive her. Every time." He catches sight of something on Danny's face, and tilts his head. "I makes a difference, Danny," he says firmly. "She loves me. She respects me."

"Respecting someone and beating them are mutually exclusive," Danny insists.

"And I love her," Rusty adds earnestly. "She's worth... _this._ " He gestures at the bruises over his face and body dismissively. "She's worth more than this."

"No," Danny disagrees quietly. "You deserve more than this."

"Doesn't work that way," Rusty says irritably. "And since when did you stop believing in unconditional love?"

"Since this morning." Since he realised that there were some conditions he absolutely wanted met. No hitting. Ever.

"Right," Rusty says, looking at him sharply. "Right. So I guess that means that if I were to hit you right now, you'd leave and never come back?"

"Rusty - " Danny starts, troubled by the rapid mood-shift.

" - let's test that, will we?" Rusty cuts in ruthlessly. "Because I gotta be honest. Right now, the idea of you leaving and not coming back is tempting."

His fist is raised as he advances on Danny. His smile is cold and wild and angry.

Danny stands his ground. He doesn't raise a hand to defend himself, or try and dodge or anything. He just takes a deep breath and looks Rusty straight in the eye, broadcasting one thought.

_Please don't hit me, Rus'._

Rusty stops inches away from him. His face crumples. "Dammit." He turns away quickly, the shaking cutting through him, cutting through _both_ of them.

"It's alright," Danny says softly, stepping in close and wrapping his arm around Rusty's shoulders. "It's going to be alright." He can see the unshed tears in Rusty's eyes, the shame, the exhaustion, the confusion. He leans in to offer a gentle kiss of reassurance.

"Don't." Rusty quickly puts his hand up and wards off the affection. He gives a subdued smile at Danny's confusion. "Isabel wouldn't like it."

His fingers dig deep into his palms. That isn't what they are about. That's never been what they are about. "She doesn't get a say," he snarls.

Rusty's eyes are bright. "My girlfriend doesn't get a say in who I kiss?"

"She's _jealous?_ " It's not like it's something new. They've both been with people who make the same assumptions the rest of the world so often does, and Danny had always felt that Isabel didn't understand, certainly not the way Tess understood, but he'd assumed she got it enough not to be afraid of a physical relationship between them. "She must know - "

" - I already cheated on her once," Rusty points out. "What guarantee does she have I won't do it again?"

"You told her so?" Danny suggests. "And besides, that was for a job." And it was over _two years ago._ At some point you had to either get over it or move on, surely.

Rusty smiles sardonically. "You really think that matters?"

"If your motivations don't matter then neither do hers," Danny says quietly. He pauses for a second. "And no. If you'd hit me just then, I wouldn't have left. But things would never be quite the same."

"See now you're making my point for me," Rusty says with a shrug.

"Uh huh," Danny nods. "And here's mine. What would _you_ do? If you found you were hurting me and didn't think you could stop yourself. Would you just shrug and get on with it?"

Rusty stares at him, unable to answer.

Danny gives him a slight smile. "See, you don't need to answer that. Because we both _know_ what you'd do. We've been down this road before. When you were afraid you were going to hurt me, you tried to make me hate you, you tried to drive me away, and then you ran off, and if that didn't work, if you really _had_ been hurting me and I'd insisted on staying anyway, what do you think you would have done?"

"I don't know," Rusty says hoarsely.

"But I do," Danny tells him gently. Rusty would rather die than hurt him.

There is a long pause and Danny waits, patiently watching Rusty work through this.

"I don't want her to leave though," he says softly at last.

Danny nods. "But has she ever even _tried?"_ he asks.

There is another pause, and Rusty sighs and shuffles his feet. "She asked me to make her leave one time."

Right. "You mean she made it your fault," he says, his jaw clenched.

"No!" Rusty looks startled. "No, she wasn't doing that."

"Right," he says, trying to sound neutral, nonconfrontational.

"She wasn't," Rusty insists again. "She just...she hates what she does, Danny. Sometimes I think - "

" - it hurts her more than it hurts you?" he suggests sarcastically.

Rusty sighs and rubs his hands through his hair in frustration. "If you could see the look on her face. After, I mean. She's...horrified. She's...it sickens her. Every time. And yes, it hurts her."

His fingernails scrape deep into his palms. "If I ever see the look on her face after she's finished _hurting you,_ you really think I'll care that she feels guilty?" His voice is a choked whisper.

A second, and Rusty's hand slipped into his, soft and hesitant and reassuring. "Hey. I get why you're angry, Danny. I want you to see it from my side, but I know you can't. Because I know I couldn't."

"She hurts you," he says. "Nothing else matters."

"But it does," Rusty tells him. "It does to me." He shrugs his shoulders irritably. "You always make things simpler than they actually are."

"You always imagine they're more complicated," Danny returns evenly. The big picture and the fine details, and maybe the truth exists between them. He sighs. "Right." The smile hurts his face. "When you were worried about hurting me it was because you were afraid you were losing your mind and you weren't going to recognise me any more. What's Isabel's excuse? She gets angry?"

Rusty grimaces. "It's not like that all the time."

"It shouldn't be like that at all," Danny refutes instantly. This has never been how things are supposed to be.

"I told you, I don't want her to leave. I want her to stay. You think I couldn't have made this stop a long time ago? I could have left, or asked her to leave...fuck, I could have called _you._ I didn't because I want her in my life. I let this happen, Danny. Hell, I never even asked her to stop."

He is trembling, Danny sees. He waits for a second before answering, because he saw Rusty realise the lie even as he was telling it. "You never asked her to stop?"

Rusty sighs and looks aside, his fingers rubbing around his mouth. "No."

"Never?" he presses.

"Once," Rusty admits. "The last time...the most recent time, I mean," he corrects himself awfully as he catches sight of the hope on Danny's face. "After you talked to her," he adds spitefully.

He'd suspected as much. And even though he knows that this is Isabel's fault, not his, he still can't keep the stricken guilt from his face. "I'm -"

" - don't." Rusty shakes his head abruptly. "That was unfair. It wasn't about that, not completely. I said something stupid. Made her angry."

Fuck. Danny takes a sharp breath. "Thought you said you knew you didn't deserve this?" he says, as gently as he can.

Rusty glances at him. " _Deserving_ and _causing_ are two different things," he says dismissively. "Anyway. I said to stop then. But I don't think she heard me."

He doesn't manage to sound completely convinced of what he's saying. "Or maybe she ignored you," Danny says flatly. "Besides. A moment ago, I didn't ask you not to hit me. Somehow you still didn't."

"It's not the same," Rusty tries.

"Some things don't need to be said out loud," Danny tells him. "Some things don't need to be said at all _._ You know Isabel. Do you really think that she needs to be _told_ that you don't want her to hit you?" His eyes search Rusty's, wonderingly.

There is a pause. Rusty's jaw is set. "But I never did," he says. He closes his eyes for a second, and the pain and exhaustion are evident. "So what happens next?"

"Come home with me," Danny says immediately, and he can see Rusty shutting down instantly. He talks quickly. "Just for a few days. A week or so, maybe. Just so you can get your head clear. Figure out what you want." That's what he says. What he really _means_ is 'Come home with me forever. Stay where I can keep you safe'.

"But I _know_ what I want," Rusty says. "I want Isabel."

"She isn't good for you," he argues.

Rusty nods a couple of times, his eyes cold. "And what's going to happen when I say no?" he asks. "You going to kidnap me?"

For a second, it's almost tempting. The urge to get Rusty far away from here is practically irresistable. But then, Rusty isn't really the problem here. He finds himself picturing that _horrified_ look in Isabel's eyes, her knuckles dripping blood and the other solution is so much easier.

"No!" Rusty snaps, fear alive on his face. "Danny, no. You are not going to lay a finger on her."

He sighs. "I want you safe, Rus', " he says earnestly. "I'd do anything to make that happen. You know that."

"You hurt her, and you're going to lose me and you're going to lose Tess," Rusty tells him fiercely, and really, that's nothing that Danny didn't already know. Neither of them would forgive him for what he was planning. And still, if it was a choice between that and knowing that Rusty was being hurt...well, that was no choice at all.

He knows his answer shows cold on his face.

Rusty takes a deep breath. "Okay. So let's think about this. If you threaten her, if you try to drive her off, then I will go with her and you will never see me again. You'll never know if I'm safe or not. And if you _hurt_ her...I'll go to the police and tell them it was me. Who do you think they'll believe? I'm the one with the motive. I'm the one who looks like he's been in a fight."

He doesn't doubt the sincerity in Rusty's voice. Rusty means every word, he knows that. And still, he also knows that there are things he could do that would still leave Isabel gone and Rusty safe. Nothing that wouldn't lead to him losing Rusty ( _nothing that wouldn't lead to Rusty being alone_ ) but safe is better than nothing. That's not what makes him hesitate.

" _Please,_ Danny," Rusty says with broken desperation. "I'm asking you to keep her safe."

"What do _you_ want, Rus'?" he asks gently. "And don't say you want things to go on as they are. Because we both know that's not true."

"Of course I don't," Rusty says tightly. "But if it's a choice between that and losing her - "

" - losing her is the better option," Danny tells him.

Rusty's eyes are fixed on his. "Isn't that my call though?"

"Yes," Danny admits, even as it kills him. "But you're making the wrong one. Come on, Rus'. I didn't ask what you were prepared to put up with. I asked what you _want._ "

Rusty looks away. "I want her not to hurt me anymore," he admits softly. "I want things to go back to the way they were before. I want _you..._ "

He grasps Rusty's hand. "You're not gonna lose me," he promises tightly.

"Really?" Rusty's eyes challenge him. "If I don't let things change, how long do you think you would be prepared to watch?"

"Forever," he says steadily, even though his mind is trapped _imagining, remembering._ "You don't get rid of me easy."

"We'll see," Rusty says with a shrug.

"You can't let things go on like this though," he carries on determinedly. "I know you think you can cope - "

" - I _can,"_ Rusty interrupts. "It's just pain. I can deal with that. I trust her, Danny."

He blinks. "You _trust_ her?" he repeats incredulously, his eyes fixed on Rusty's swollen cheek.

"Yes," Rusty says defiantly. "There's a line. She doesn't cross it."

"Right." Danny's jaw is clenched. Rusty has put too much effort into normalising this. "So, what, you're good to keep going as long as she doesn't break bones?"

Rusty's expression doesn't change.

Danny feels his heart stumble. "She already broke something?" he whispers.

There is a tense shrug. Rusty won't look at him. "My wrist. Just once. It was a while back. She didn't mean to."

More excuses. Savagely, Danny wishes that she was here right now. Because right at this moment, hedidn't think he'd let Rusty's pleading ove him. "So where the hell is this line that you're so sure she won't cross?" he demands.

Another pause. Rusty's eyes are fixed on the counter and he doesn't exactly answer. "She's not gonna kill me. She's not gonna do anything that might permanently hurt me. She loves me."

His mouth is dry. "She doesn't keep you safe."

"Depends what you mean by safe," Rusty says with the pretence of ease. "Besides. Safety is overrated."

"It's about anger, right?" he tries. "Are you really _that_ sure she has control?"

He can see the lie springing to Rusty's lips but he chokes it back at the last minute. "I used to be," he says instead. He sighs. "I used to be able to shrug it all off. I used to be able to forgive her so easily. I promised I wouldn't let it change anything."

"That's not a promise you can keep," Danny tells him.

"If she's just hitting me...if it's just between us and I can deal, why does it actually matter?" Rusty asks desperately.

Danny looks at him, his lips pursed. He thinks maybe Rusty is ready to listen. "Because you're afraid to let me touch you. Because you've stopped taking care of your hotel. Because you stood up Linus and the guys. Because _Livingston_ thinks you're nervous. Because I told you Reuben was in trouble and you didn't leap to help. Because you're exhausted and miserable and you don't know how to make it stop. Because you _flinched away from me._ "

Rusty closes his eyes and takes a deep shuddering breath. His eyes are damp when he opens them. "I know," he says tiredly. "I know. You're right. Like always."

"Not always," Danny corrects softly. "But I am right."

"Yeah," Rusty nods. "But I can't...I can't just give up, Danny. You have to see that. I love her. And I've spent so long making everything okay, I can't just turn around and say that actually it's not okay and it never has been. I can't do that to her, you understand?"

_You can,_ Danny wants to tell him. _You really, really can._ But he can see the anxiety in Rusty's eyes. There are reasons he agreed that this is Rusty's call earlier. "So what do you want to do?" he asks enouragingly.

"I'm going to tell her she can't hurt me anymore," Rusty says, with the ghost of his usual determination. "I'm going to tell her if she _does_ I'll leave her flat. And if she can stick to that for a month..." He shrugs. "Then we'll see."

It's not the answer Danny was hoping for. "Do you think you'd really be happy like that?" he asks searchingly. "You think you could stay with her, knowing everything she did?"

But Rusty is looking at _him,_ his brow creased intently. "Could _you,"_ he asks. "If she doesn't hurt me anymore, could you forgive her? Could you let things go back to how they were before you know?"

He imagine and he can't help the shudder. "I don't know," he says, raw and honest, and it's better than the instantanous _no._ "Do you really think that she'll stop?"

Rusty doesn't answer. But then, he doesn't need to. The answer is written all over his face.

"Then don't do this," he says earnestly. "Please. If all you're doing is letting her hurt you one more time, it's not worth it." Again, he doesn't need Rusty to speak to know the answer. He swallows hard and keeps talking, low and honest. "I don't think I can bear it. Knowing that she's hurting you again. Not even once."

Rusty looks at him for a moment. "Stay for dinner," he says abruptly.

Danny understands at once. "With Isabel," he says, voice almost frozen with dread. "You want me to sit across the table from her and smile and make conversation, knowing that she...knowing that _you..._ " And yet, wasn't it better than the alternative? Leaving Rusty _alone_ with her...no. That was a thousand times worse.

"You're a con man," Rusty reminds him shortly. "Act like it. You've smiled at people far worse than Isabel. And don't say this is different. It's been personal plenty of times."

"I'm not the one acting like she's not the enemy," he says dryly. "I'm not gonna pretend I don't know, and I can't act like she doesn't disgust me. But as long as she's prepared to be civilised..." He shrugs. "And I'm not just staying for dinner," he adds. "I'm staying until I'm confident she can be trusted with you."

The arguments rise up in Rusty's eyes, and Danny silently denies them one by one. He is prepared to support Rusty – whatever Rusty needs – but he's not going to leave Rusty in danger. Not on his own.

( _This is Rusty's house. This is Rusty's life. And nothing here is safe the way it should be._ )

"Okay," Rusty says at last. "Okay. I'm gonna tell her tonight," he adds, and even though his voice is steady, his shoulders are hunched and he is afraid, Danny knows, no matter how much he's trying to hide it from both of them. "When she sees you here, with me still looking like...well, the subject's gonna come up pretty quick anyway."

Yeah. He glances at his watch. It's still early. They have a few hours. "Then let me take care of you," he requests softly. "Please."

Rusty nods.

* * *

He takes Rusty through to the spare room, the one he normally stays in. Seems so much better than going to the room Rusty and Isabel share. He doesn't see how that could possibly feel safe, and he sure as hell doesn't think it will help him feel any less angry.

He's agreed to this. He just isn't so sure that he's capable of going through with it. Especially when Rusty takes his shirt off and Danny sees the way the bruises continue down his side. He is no stranger to violence. From looking, he thinks she must have kept right on hitting – kicking, maybe? - even after Rus' was on the ground. He doesn't know what Isabel feels for Rusty, but it isn't love. Not the way Danny understands it anyway. And he wants to ask _why_ and he wants to as _how could you_ and he already know it's not in him to understand the answers.

He's not sure, but he thinks maybe Rusty has a couple of cracked ribs. He fetches more ice, and he fetches painkillers and hot chocolate, and he tells Rus' to lie still and try and get some rest, and there is affection and amusement in Rusty's eyes, but at least he isn't arguing that Isabel already took care of everything anymore.

They don't talk. There have been enough of that, and silence is comfortable, and Danny isn't surprised when Rusty nods off, and is even less surprised when he curls in close beside him, he head resting on Danny's arm. At least now there is peace on his face.

Danny is exhausted as well, but _safer_ isn't the same as _safe,_ and there is no way he's going to risk falling asleep. He stays awake, standing guard and watching Rusty sleep, until he hears the quiet sound of the front door opening and he's in plenty time to quickly nudge Rusty awake so that when Isabel steps into the room they are up and dressed and waiting.

Still, he catches the fleeting look of angry suspicion on her face. _Really?_ Even if they were conducting some illicit relationship, when Rusty is this hurt how can she even imagine that they'd be thinking about sex right now?

She smiles, and it looks relaxed and open and Danny is searching for the monster beneath. "Hi," she says, looking at both of them. "I wasn't expecting to see you here, Danny. Robert didn't say you were coming over."

"He knows, Isabel," Rusty says quietly. He's standing by the bed, his hands loose at his side but the tension has crept back in across his shoulders. He wonders if Isabel even sees.

"I figured it out myself," he says, meeting Isabel's eyes coldly. "Rus' didn't tell me." There is a conversation playing here, beneath the noise. _This is my fault,_ he tells her. _Don't even think about blaming him. Don't even think about_ hurting _him._

She is pale, her eyes wide and just for a second she is looking at him like he's her worst nightmare come to life. Just for a second, he finds that eminently satisfying. Then she nods a couple of times, gaining control like she's been expecting this, like she's _considering._ "So what happens now?" she asks, her eyes fixed on Danny's, and she is disdainful. Dismissive. _Do you really think I would?_

Yes. Of course he does.

And Rusty, who can read both of them as easy as breathing, steps forwards, cutting through the antagonism. "I was thinking dinner," he says with a bright smile. "Italian okay?" He looks first at Danny and then Isabel, and it is warning and worry combined.

"Sure," Danny says, taking a deep breath.

Isabel frowns and says nothing.

* * *

Beyond doubt, this has to be the most awkward dinner Danny has ever faced. He manages to work things so that Rusty is sitting beside him, but that leaves Isabel sitting opposite, looking straight at them, and the anger is still there, running beneath all his thoughts.

Rusty keeps the conversation going, light and unremarkable. He asks about Isabel's day, and how Tess' latest redecorating kick is going, and Danny and Isabel answer as best they can without addressing each other. Danny isn't sure which of the three of them Rusty is trying to prove something to.

Now and then he catches Isabel stealing glances at him across the table, apprehensive and uncertain. He meets her gaze easily and keeps the sharp smile on his face. Each time she looks away. He hopes she is worried. He hopes she understands what she has done and what he wants to do to her. He knows exactly what she deserves and he regrets the fact that he isn't going to get a chance to show her.

It is the most uncomfortable dinner Danny has ever taken part in, but he follows Rusty's lead in this as in all things.

Even when Rusty lingers over his cannoli, eating as slowly as possible, Danny just presses his leg against Rusty's beneath the table, offering all the support imaginable. However much time Rusty needs. Because no way this is going to be easy.

"So," Rusty begins at last. "I guess we should talk now."

"Do you really want to do this in front of _him_?" Isabel jerks her head towards Danny.

The corner of Rusty's mouth tugs up slightly. "Yeah."

"With both of you against me like this, I'm feeling very threatened right now, Robert," she warns.

"How ironic," Danny smiles.

Rusty glances at him with something that isn't quite exasperation.

"Do you really want to make this a trial?" she asks.

"It could be a trial," Danny points out. "A real one. There are words for what you've done. Words and laws."

She flinches. It isn't as satisfying as Danny had hoped. It is too small a thing.

"Even if that was true," Rusty begins, and winces slightly at Danny's sharp insistent look. _It is true._ It is true and she should understand that. They both should. "Even if that was true, that's not what's gonna happen here."

She nods. "So what _is_ going to happen?" she asks, gazing directly at Rusty. Danny longs to remind her that she doesn't have the right to even look at him.

"You can't hurt me anymore," Rusty says bluntly. "If you ever do, I'll walk out and not come back. This is our last chance."

"Of course," she says eagerly. "I won't, I promise."

The words are easy and smack of sincerity. Danny isn't convinced.

Rusty sighs. "I've heard that before Isabel," he says, with a gentleness that makes Danny's clenched fists itch. "A few times too many for me to believe you."

Her eyes flash with brief anger. She is not used to being challenged. "Well, if you're not going to believe me, what's the _point?_ " she demands, and Danny thinks that's a very good question. "I meant it every time. Maybe if you'd been more willing to believe me, things wouldn't have gone so wrong."

"You don't get to make this Rusty's fault," Danny says firmly.

She takes a sharp breath, and then another. "I'm not," she says in a small voice. "What I did is unforgiveable. Do you think I don't know that? But I am sorry, Robert. Really, I am."

"I know," Rusty says softly, and he rubs at the bruise beneath his eye. "And I do forgive you. Always. 's just...I don't know how much more I can take and still be me. I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for," Danny and Isabel say in fierce and perfect unison.

Rusty laughs. "Something you agree on."

"I will never hit you again, Robert," Isabel promises earnestly. "I really mean it this time."

"I thought you really meant it everytime," Danny cuts in sardonically.

She shoots him a look of sheer irritability. "I suppose this last chance, or whatever, isn't your prefererred solution?"

"My preferred solution?" Danny muses slowly. _"My_ preferred solution would see you at the bottom of the ocean, weighed down with stones. But since that's not gonna happen either, I'm staying around to make sure you keep your word."

She is pale. It would be very easy, Danny realises, to push her just a bit further into losing her temper. He wonders if her fuse is so short or if she just isn't used to bothering trying.

"I don't want to fight," Isabel says tiredly, ignoring Danny completely now. "I never want to fight. Can't things go back to the way they were? Before, I mean."

Her voice is wistful and she is saying exactly what Rusty had earlier, and Danny wants to interrupt, to tell Rusty not to trust her, but Rusty sighs and shakes his head, and when he speaks his voice is full of regret. "I agreed that Danny should stay, Isabel. For a few days at least."

"You don't trust me," she states, and she actually has the gall to sound disappointed.

Rusty _smiles._ "I don't trust _me,"_ he corrects with a side glance to Danny. "I told you I don't want things to go on as they are."

Danny's phone rings suddenly. He looks down. Tess. It's been hours now, she was probably expecting a call ages ago. And really, he needs to tell her that he's not gonna be home for a while.

He looks up at Rusty anxiously.

"Go," Rusty says with a faint smile. "We'll – _I'll_ be fine."

_Sure._ But nevertheless, he stands and takes the phone into the hall. He leaves the door open though and stands watch so he won't miss a thing.

"Hey, Tess," he says quietly as he answers.

"Danny!" She sounds relieved. "I didn't want to disturb you, but I wanted to know what was happening."

"It looks like I'm going to be here for a while," he starts to say, but he doesn't get a chance to finish.

It all happens fast.

Rusty stands up to clear the dishes away – and Danny wishes he wouldn't – and Isabel stands up to follow. She says something, and Rusty answers and the look on his face...that careless smile, the sharpness...it's the same look Danny has seen too many times as they face down some mark who wants to hurt them. Whatever he says, it's more than enough to make Isabel angry. She grabs his arm and pulls him back and her hand flies up, and for a second Danny can see the resignation in Rusty's eyes, but he is already running long before that, his phone falling forgotten to the ground, and he shoves Isabel's hand away, inches from Rusty's face.

"No," he snarls harshly, forcing himself between them and the fury is roaring through him like a hurricane. "No!"

"I...I wasn't going to," Isabel protests, her face white. "You don't understand."

"Not even half an hour," Rusty says, his voice soft and dead.

"But I _didn't,_ " she insists wildly.

Danny's fist is clenched. There is something obscene in the way she is arguing. How can she stand there and pretend innocence? He wants to...he _needs_ to...she deserves...

Rusty's hand is soft on his shoulder. "Danny."

He turns his head. Rusty is standing immediately behind him, his face lined with pain and weariness. "How can you love her?" he asks, anguished.

"Doesn't work like that," Rusty says with a tight smile. "You know that."

"She's an abuser," he says, and it gives him no pleasure to see Rusty flinch in acknowledgment.

"No!" Isabel exclaims. "It's not like that. _I'm_ not like that."

Danny reaches out and takes Rusty's hand, turning his wrist over gently. There are already dark bruises forming. "This is what you are," he tells her harshly. "No matter what else you do with your life, this is all you'll ever be."

She looks like he has slapped her in the face. "No," she says again weakly. "No, that doesn't count. You bruise easily Robert, you know that. Anyway, I didn't mean to. I wasn't ready, you need to give me another chance. This isn't _fair._ "

He feels sick. "You think this is a game?" he whispers incredulously. " _Fair?_ You don't just get as many shots as you like."

"It's over, Isabel," Rusty cuts in, sounding close to exhaustion. "'m sorry."

The noise she makes is low and hurt and angry. Her fingernails are pushing hard into her palms. The fury is written on her face, and for a moment he is afraid she will make a grab for Rusty. But the moment passes and she turns away. It takes a moment before he realises she is crying. It is uncomfortable and satisfying at the same time.

"We should go," he tells Rusty quietly. The longing is obvious on Rusty's face as he gazes at Isabel. They have to leave _now,_ before Rusty changes his mind. "You got anything you want to take?"

He isn't altogether surprised when Rusty nods, the lie quick and awkward. He can see that Rusty desperately wants a moment alone. His eyes are reddened, and he suspects – knows – Rusty is holding back the tears through willpower alone.

"Okay," he says. "I'll wait out in the hall."

The relief dawns on Rusty's face. Naturally, he doesn't want to leave Danny and Isabel alone together. Even Danny has to admit that would be a bad idea. Rusty hesitates for a moment, looking at Isabel's hunched back. She is shaking, and Danny can see how much Rusty longs to reach out to her. And if Rus' _tries,_ Danny knows he will stop him. Somehow. Thankfully, Rusty just talks. "Isabel..." he says quietly.

She doesn't look round.

He sighs. "I'll see you in a minute," he says, choked and remote.

Danny walks out into the hall and watches him limp up the stairs. He isn't incredibly surprised when Isabel quietly walks out to confront him a moment or two later.

"You ruined everything," she says, low and controlled and still so very angry.

He takes a moment and stoops to pick up his phone before he looks at her. Thankfully, the call disconnected. He doesn't think Rusty would cope well, knowing Tess had overheard. Eventually, he turns to face Isabel. " _You_ ruined everything," he corrects her. "He loves you. Why the hell would you throw that away?"

Her lips are thin. "He cheated on me," she says spitefully. " That's what started all this. You didn't know _that_ did you?"

"Of course I knew that," he says tiredly. "Do you really think I wouldn't? And see, here's the thing about that. You'd left him then, I wouldn't have blamed you. I'd have been on his side, because I'm always on his side, but I would have understood why you left and I would have thought that was reasonable. But that's not what you did, is it? Instead you hit him, and you – no. _He_ told you it was his fault, didn't he? And it was easier to believe him."

"You don't understand," she snaps.

"You're damn right," he tells her heatedly. "I don't understand. So, tell me, Isabel. Why'd you do it? You know he's never gonna hit you back. Is that what you like? Do you get off on controlling him? Does it get you hot?"

She lifts her hand as if to hit him.

He raises an eyebrow. "Careful," he says, smiling. "I _do_ hit back."

A second, and she subsides. "It's not like that," she says brokenly. "I love him."

"Love." He shakes his head and laughs. "You don't know what that means."

There is a noise on the stairs and they step away from each other quickly, caught in the same conspiracy, and still when Rusty appears, overnight bag in hand, he gazes anxiously at each of them in turn. Danny offers a smile of reassurance that he knows doesn't reach his eyes. It's hard to promise that everything is gonna be okay right now.

"Isabel..." Rusty starts, walking stiffly towards her. He stops a few feet away though, his arms loose at his side. "I'm sorry it ended like this."

"It doesn't have to," she says in a low voice.

"Yeah. It really does," Danny says firmly.

They both ignore him. "I told you what would happen," Rusty says.

"Yes." She closes her eyes for a second. "Will you call me?"

"Might be better if I didn't," he says, and that's not a yes, but it's not as much of a no as Danny would like. "You should call someone," he adds.

"I...don't think I should be around people right now," she says with a weak smile. "Go. I'll be fine."

She is playing the victim again, and Danny bites back the growl. They are leaving her here, in the city Rusty chose to live in, in the house Rusty bought with his own money. She gets everything.

"No," Rusty says warmly, leaning against Danny's arm. "Not everything."

Jealousy flashes across her face.

Rusty sighs. "Goodbye, Isabel."

"Goodbye, Robert," she says, and he thinks she is starting to cry.

It's still raining when they step outside. Rusty sags against the door. "So, I guess that's that," he says numbly.

There is nothing for Danny to say. He takes Rusty by the hand and leads him to the car. Time to get out of here.

* * *

He charters a private plane to get them home. Some things money is good for, and ensuring privacy right now is worth almost anything. Rusty is brittle, barely saying a thing. Through the car journey and the airport, he answers Danny in monosyllables. Danny is fluent in silence. This is somehow more difficult.

Once they are in the air, he fetches a couple of whisky miniatures from the fridge, pours them into plastic tumblers, and pushes one into Rusty's hand. "You're angry with me," he notes.

Rusty drinks deep. "I know it's not what happened, but it feels like you made me choose between you." He shrugs. "I'll get over it."

It isn't what happened. And Danny hates that Rusty can even think it. "I'm sorry," he says steadily. "I just want you happy."

For a long moment, Rusty just stares at his drink in silence. When he finally looks up at Danny, his smile is tired. "Realistically, I don't think happy was an option," he admits.

"It will be," he promises fervently, taking Rusty's hand and gripping it tightly.

Rusty looks down at where their hands are joined, but doesn't try to draw away. "So what are you gonna tell Tess?" he asks.

Danny hesitates too long.

Rusty's brow furrows. "You told her already?" It is shocked and hurt and disbelieving, and he pulls his hand away.

"No!" Danny denies at once. He sighs quietly. "I figured out what was going on this morning. Drove like hell to your place, but you weren't there. I called Tess because - "

" - you were scared," Rusty nods with a little more understanding, but there's still a thread of anger beneath. Rusty never wants anyone to know.

Yes. No. Not exactly. "I just...I had to tell her that I would never hurt her," he admits.

Rusty touches his hand lightly. "She knows that already."

"Yeah," he agrees with a brief smile. "That's what she said. Anyway, she already knew I was worried about you. Figured the rest out easy enough." He hesitates for a second. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright," Rusty says, and it's an effort but he means it. "I couldn't ask you to lie to her. And I think she'd get a bit suspicious when you drag me back to yours looking like I went three rounds with Robocop."

"Worried," Danny corrects gently. "Not suspicious."

Rusty blinks. "Yeah."

"She said she was going to get the spare room ready," he goes on, watching Rusty closely. "She knows you're coming and she's not upset or angry - "

" - I'm not afraid of Tess, Danny," Rusty cuts in, low and angry.

Danny looks at him steadily. "I never said you were," he says. "But you are...apprehensive." He thinks about what Livingston said, and about the way Rusty needed to put away the groceries. It's not that Rusty expects Tess to hurt either of them. It's about comfort, and that will take time.

"Just wired up wrong," Rusty grimaces unhappily, and there's another thought there, lurking below the surface.

"No," Danny denies swiftly. " _She_ decided to hurt you. She had a choice and she made it. That's all about who she is, and nothing to do with who you are."

"I'm the one who loves her," Rusty says softly.

"Yeah," Danny agrees, his voice hoarse and painful. "And that's why it's unforgiveable."

Rusty rubs his fingers across his mouth agitatedly. "You know, she's the only person I've ever felt that way about," he says quietly.

Danny nods. "I know."

"I never thought, I'd settle down," he goes on, still looking down. "All the time from when I was a kid, right up until I met her, I never..." He shrugs. "Dating was fine, but relationships - "

" - yeah," Danny agrees. He knows this.

"And I was happy like that," Rusty adds. "And then I met her and she was..." He closes his eyes for a second. "Wonderful. She was wonderful and alive, and we had so much fun, and I felt like I finally understood what I'd been missing."

Yes. And maybe Danny wondered how much of that had been because he'd been in prison then, and Rusty had been lonely and missing out on all the things they didn't talk about. He doesn't voice the thought. Rusty loved her. Loves her. That's what matters.

"I don't think I'm ever gonna feel that way again," he confides quietly. "I think that was all her."

"Oh, Rus'." Unthinking, Danny slides out of his seat and kneels before him, one hand wrapped around Rusty's hand, the other pressed carefully against his cheek. "Maybe you will and maybe you won't. Maybe it was all her, but maybe it was just that you'd reached a point in your life when you were looking for someone. I don't know. But I do know that either way is okay. If you meet someone else, good. And if you don't, that's okay too. You said yourself; you were happy before. You shouldn't ever have to settle for anything else." He takes both Rusty's hands now and looks at him fiercely. "And you will never, ever be alone, I promise you."

Rusty looks at him for a long moment, his face open and unguarded, the heartache clearly written. "I miss her," he admits.

He doesn't try to minimise it. Doesn't try to tell Rusty that he's so much better off without her, so much safer. Rusty already knows that. That's why he's here and not there. Instead he just squeezes Rusty's hands tightly and and leans up and presses a chaste and gentle kiss against Rusty's lips. "I know," he murmurs. "I'm not going anywhere. Long as it takes. Long as you need me for."

Rusty silently tells him that he _always_ needs him.

"And that's okay too," Danny says softly.

There is a second, and then Rusty leans forwards, falling against him, and Danny wraps his arms tight around him, and he lets Rusty cry and holds him together for a second or an hour or an eternity. The stars are shining down on them, bright through the window. He kisses him again, brief and tender.

"Let's go home." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might add another chapter of this at some point, fair warning. It would be a different version of this one. We'll see. In the meantime, if you've got a moment, please let me know what you thought of this.


	4. Chapter 4 Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, I think I said that I had an idea for an alternative version of chapter 3. This is that alternative version, and it comes in three parts because...well, because it does, frankly.   
> Please note, this follows directly on from the end of chapter 2.

"We need to talk," she says when he comes in, and despite her anger ( _justified – it is, it is, it_ is, _she can be angry and not a monster._ ) she feels the sting of guilt when she sees the dark bruises against his pale face. The guilt fuels her anger. Her anger makes her guilty. That is the cycle now.

He closes his eyes for a second and she can see the lines of pain and exhaustion. He is so much older now than he was when she met him. Sometimes she is afraid that she has broken him. "What have I done now?" he asks, and it is tired and it is bitter.

She bites back on the swell of easy anger at his tone and takes a deep breath. "Sometimes I think you're _trying_ to piss me off," she tells him, and in her time she has heard many men say that their women were asking for it. Once upon a time she would have scoffed at the excuses. Now she knows what that feels like, and even though it still doesn't excuse her, even though she is repulsed at the thought that she has anything in common with those assholes from so long ago, she can't help but think that he is at least partly responsible for the way their life together has turned out.

"I'm not," he says shortly. There is no fear in his eyes when he meets her gaze. Once, she took comfort in that, feeling like as long as he isn't afraid of her she hasn't gone too far. Now she thinks he doesn't feel enough. She doesn't want him afraid of her, but she doesn't want him some unfeeling robot either. She longs to shake some emotion into him, to make him feel, to love...to _hurt..._ oh _,_ God.

His expression fades to something more gentle. "What did you want to say?" he asks, soft-toned and conciliatory.

( _When he looks at her like that...run, she wants to say. Run and don't look back._ )

"I heard some people talking at work," she says. "They know that the Desiree Gallery and the Forty-Second street bank were hit by the same person. They're forming a task force." She can't quite hide the anger and the accusation from her voice. She doesn't quite try. That's two places in as many months that are far too close together, and he does have a distinctive style all his own. The subset of thieves who'll turn their hand to both art theft and bank jobs is small. He knows better than this. He should be more careful.

"Mmmm," he says, not sounding surprised.

"Is that all you have to say?!" she demands, suddenly furious. "You're being careless, Robert. You should never have tried two big jobs in the same city so close together."

He rubs at his mouth painfully. "You wanted me to stick close to home," he reminds her softly.

That is true, she knows. She likes it when he is within her sight. ( _In easy reach._ ) Angrily she takes a couple of strides towards him and he tenses up as she reaches past and grabs the shopping bags from off the floor. "You need to put these away," she says crossly, marching through to the kitchen. He follows with the rest. She isn't finished. "So you need to lie low for a while," she continues. "It's not like we need the money."

"It's not about the money," he says as he puts away the milk. Her lips narrow at the tone and she angrily shoves the rice to the back of the cupboard, knocking over half a dozen jars and bottles in the process. Her fist clenches. She takes a deep breath. And another.

She can't hold it in.

"You're being selfish!" she snaps, whirling round and shoving him hard against the fridge. A glass bottle of soda slips from his hand and smashes across the marble floor. "You can't just think of yourself. You're going to get caught." With a wash of annoyance she realises she sounds like her mother. It's that anger – anger for what he drives her to – more than anything else that compels her to add "Do you really think you could cope in prison? They'd eat you alive in there."

There is a sharp intake of breath – she doesn't normally hurt him that way, not with words. "What's that supposed to mean?" he demands.

She doesn't even believe what she's saying, not really. But there's more emotion in his eyes than there's been for _weeks,_ and she wants to keep digging. "Real men don't let their girlfriends hit them," she says spitefully, a part of her horrified at what she says.

A pause, and he glances down coolly; she has grabbed his wrist and has it bent back, twisted till she can see every line of tendon straining. She hasn't even noticed doing it. "I suppose prison might be a damn sight safer than here," he murmurs.

It is as close as he's ever come to admitting out loud that there is something deeply wrong with their relationship. A haze descends, her hand lets fly and he is staggering backwards, blood at his mouth. If this is wrong, if she _is_ the same as those bastards...then why does she have to stop?

* * *

* * *

After, she feels sick. She always does, no matter how she justifies what she does. He is unconscious on the floor, and that happens so much more than she wants to remember. She sits huddled against the kitchen door, waiting for him. This part is the worst. She feels so alone, their happy ending so far away. No fairytale ever ends with the princess beating her Prince Charming unconscious.

When he awakes, she will be sorry and he will forgive and they can talk about the task force like reasonable adults. They will find a compromise. And perhaps she will suggest they go away for the weekend, just the two of them. Somewhere quiet where no one will see the bruises.

It is ten minutes before she realises he isn't waking up.

The worry is sharp and immediate and she stumbles up and onto her knees and crawls over to him. "Robert," she calls – softly, gently – and she shakes his arm lightly.

There is no response. He doesn't move. His body is limp and doll-like.

Panic is crawling up her throat. The guilt is dark and cloying. She has done this... Perhaps he would respond better if he thought she was someone else. "Rusty?" she tries, her voice hoarse and frightened. "Rusty!" She lifts his head, ready to try slapping his face, hoping he will respond to pain. ( _He always does, after all._ )

She forgets how to breathe.

There is a growing pool of blood on the marble floor beneath his head, hot and sticky and red. Unable to stop herself, she tilts his head around with a single finger and with the other hand, she reaches out and touches the wound. It's too big, and the bone beneath is too soft.

Oh, God, what has she done?

Bile rises in her throat and she swallows it down hastily. With care, she lowers his head again and with a trembling hand she reaches for his throat, seeking out his pulse. For a moment there is nothing and she feels like her world is ending. Then she feels the faintest flutter against her fingertips.

He's alive. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. There are tears in her eyes.

She lifts his hand and presses it against her face. He is cold to her touch. For a long moment she sits like that, holding onto him, staring at his face and wishing he would open his eyes. This is like a horrible, horrible nightmare. She can't...she didn't hit him that hard!

He isn't waking up. He needs a doctor. What has she _done?_ "I'm sorry, Robert," she whispers, her mouth dry.

It takes her far too long to find her phone, but still it isn't until the 911 operator is talking that she realises she doesn't know what to say. Part of her wants to confess, to just admit that she's a monster but if she says that now, they'll take her away and Robert will be alone. She needs to stay with him. She needs him. He needs her.

Breathless, she stumbles through a story of an intruder and a struggle, and the woman says she's sending an ambulance, and Isabel thanks her about a hundred times.

She only has minutes. She has to make this look right. She is protecting _both_ of them here, after all. Robert would rather die than let anyone know the truth. ( _He isn't going to die._ )

Disconnecting the burglar alarm and making it look like the work of a pro takes precious moments, and she knows she won't have time to run upstairs and find glass cutters. Instead, she steps outside onto the verandah and smashes the glass in the french doors with her jacket wrapped around her hand. She overturns the table in the hall and knocks a bunch of junk and crockery onto the floor and then, in the distance but coming thankfully closer, she can hear sirens.

She hurries back to the kitchen. She hurries back to Robert. He has not moved.

When she takes his hand, she sees her own knuckles are scraped and swollen. Cursing, she grabs up her purse and scrabbles through it for her foundation. A quick layer hides her guilt, but then there is a pounding at the door and she carelessly lets it fall as she runs to answer.

In the hall she hesitates for a moment. If she lets them in, she has made this real. The knock comes again, and she pulls the door open and reality comes swarming in.

* * *

Time is a blur. She is kept back as paramedics surround him, barking orders, pushing drugs, pumping oxygen, and all the while a trio of uniforms are darting from room to room, guns in hand, making sure the intruder has left. All she can do is watch the agonisingly slow way they move Robert onto the stretcher and out to the ambulance. No one tries to stop her following.

The ambulance ride takes forever. She never thought they lived so far from the hospital. The driver is constantly radioing ahead to the ER, relaying more numbers that she doesn't understand. The paramedic moves from Robert to the monitors and back again, constantly, frantically. Their faces are grim. His hand is gripped in hers tightly, like she can keep him here by sheer force of will. None of this is real.

They rush him off to the theatre as soon as they reach the hospital. She cannot follow. She is left in a narrow waiting room that smells too clean to be believed. She should be crying, she thinks dully. She needs to cry, but right now she doesn't think she can remember how.

The detective – Casey – brings her coffee and mechanically she adds cream and sugar until it was something that Robert would drink.

She used to tease him about that back when they first met in Rome. He could speak the language, he loved the food, but he never got past drinking coffee like an American. He would just laugh and say he was too blond to pass for Italian _anyway,_ and she would threaten to start buying artificial sweetener for the sake of his teeth and...and...

How did they get from there to here?

Casey is gentle and sympathetic as he takes her statement. She tells him she's a cop too, a lieutenant so she outranks him, and she mentions McQuillan's name. It means something, she has become a more reliable witness in his eyes.

The story she tells is simple enough. She came home to hear shouting. She ran through to the kitchen in time to see the intruder attacking Robert. She went for her gun, he ran, and she let him go in favour of helping Robert. It is plausible; she can see him nodding along.

Still, he asks if Robert might have any enemies, and the question brings a half dozen names to mind. So many people that might have hurt him...why did it have to be _her?_ Her quiet "No," is just a little too hesitant and she sees his eyes narrow. Thankfully he doesn't pursue it, but he asks her to describe the intruder. She gives a description of Antonio, a jerk in Rome she dated for a few weeks. They will not find him; he doesn't have any sort of criminal record, and she is confident he has never set foot in the states. But she is going to be asked to repeat this description, maybe to a sketch artist, and she needs to be consistent.

( _She has not thought of Antonio in years. She hit him once, when they broke up, after she heard the way he was talking about her to his buddies. At the time she'd felt nothing but satisfaction. Now she wondered...)_

"Thank you for your time, lieutenant," Detective Casey says as he finishes up at last. "I'll keep you updated with our progress, of course, and if you need anything or you remember any other details please don't hesitate to call." He pauses for a second, his eyes rich with sympathy. "Is there anyone I can call for you?" he asks.

She does not even need to think. "No."

Right now there is no one she can bear to see. Her friends...Dad...they would all ask questions, give her the sympathy she doesn't deserve, and she has tried too long and too hard to make everything sound perfect.

She should call Robert's friends, she knows. At the very least she should call Saul because he is the closest thing to family Robert has and he would want...would deserve...to know. But this will hurt him, and besides, he will tell Danny.

Danny. The other person she should call. And there is no way she can look him in the eye now. She has washed Robert's blood from her hands but it is still beneath the skin. More than that though, she can't stand to think of Danny being the one Robert wakes up to. It is _her_ job to take care of him, _her_ job to look after him, and the thought of him looking to Danny instead fills her with a sickening rage.

Besides. He won't want anyone to know. Not Danny, not Saul, not anyone. She is confident of that. In many ways he is a deeply proud and private man. After all, he's never told Danny about all the times _she_ hurt him. It's not like she told him to hide it, that was all his own choice. He wouldn't want Danny to know about this either. It is _their_ secret, and she will keep it for both of them until he wakes up.

She wishes she could cry.

* * *

It is fourteen hours before the doctors come to see her. People have been in and out before that – nurses to tell her there is still no news and offer her more coffee, other families waiting on the worst nights of their own lives. They have come and gone. No one else has been so conspicuously alone.

She stays seated as they talk, her hands wrapped tightly around the latest cup of plastic coffee. They tell her that Robert is stable, for now at least. He is out the theatre, waiting to be transferred up to ICU. He has a depressed skull fracture, and they have repaired three bleeds in his brain, but there is too much swelling to know what other problems there might be. Brain damage. The words hang in the air and she isn't even sure whether or not anyone has said them. He is in a coma. He might not wake up.

And then... _then..._ there is the hesitation as they tell her about the other injuries. The older ones they cannot explain but she remembers in every detail. The cuts and bruises, the three cracked ribs in various states of healing, the hairline fracture to his cheekbone that's a few days old at least.

That must have been when they came back from the beach. She remembers, and wishes she didn't. She hadn't known it was broken. He hadn't suggested it hurt anymore than...anymore than usual. Does a cheekbone count as part of the skull? She is not sure, but if it does, she's broken his skull twice in less than a week. Once is careless, twice is...oh, God. Why would she do that? Why would she ever do that?

They do not suspect her, she can see it on their faces. If anything, they suspect Robert, suspect that maybe he might have been involved in something criminal.

She succeeds in looking shocked.

None of his crimes ever deserved this.

Another hour passes before she is allowed in to see him. She tries to look past the tubes and wires that surround him, the bandages that cover most of his head, to see _him,_ but it is difficult. He is more still than she has ever seen him. The right side of his face is almost black in colour and there's a tube down his throat. He can't be trusted to breathe on his own. ( _Hell, he always does everything else on his own, so why not this?_ )

She presses her hands against her mouth like she is trying her damndest to keep something inside.

It's only a few minutes, but it seems like hours before she can bring herself to approach the bed. Slowly, she lifts his hand, twining her fingers in hers.

"Hello, Robert," she says at last, and even though she is talking quietly it seems unnaturally loud in the little room.

She bites her lip, unsure of what to say. Everyone knows that you're supposed to talk to people in comas, and the only problem is she has no idea whether that's something she actually _knows,_ or just something she has seen on TV.

She has never been this alone in her life. It all still feels so unreal. So impossible.

With a sigh, she presses his hand against her cheek. It is almost cold.

"I never told you," she says, and her voice is soft and broken. "But you're the best thing to ever happen to me. The first time I ever saw you, when you were running away from the police, you looked right at me and you smiled, and in that moment you looked like you were having more fun than I'd had in my entire life." She smiles a little at the memory and it is painful. "You know, just for a second, I actually thought about getting up and running with you. Just because I could." She sighed. "I love the way you smile at me. The way your eyes light up and it feels like anything in the world is possible, just for the two of us. It makes me feel... _you_ make me feel. Magical."

For a long time there is silence, the only sound the laboured breathing coming from the tube. She sits with her head bowed over his hand, her eyes closed. She could be praying if there was anyone left to pray to. But there is no one to hear but Robert, and she has given him so many reasons not to listen.

Still she grips his hand tighter. "I'm _sorry,_ " she says with quiet agony. "Oh, God, I'm sorry. I never meant _this._ I never wanted to hurt you." The sob rips through her chest like a knife. It _hurts._ "How often have I said that?" she asks with a snort of laughter that is half hysterical. Her eyes are fixed on his face. "How often have I promised you things would be different? That I'd never hurt you again. You always knew better. And you were always right." She hesitates for a long moment before leaning down and pressing the briefest, chastest, kiss to his forehead. She knows she doesn't deserve this. "Please," she whispers. Raw. Frightened. "Please come back to me. Please don't leave me alone."

There is no answer. She holds his hand and cries.

* * *

Danny hasn't heard from Rusty in over two weeks. Words can't exactly describe how that feels, but it's a jarring _wrongness_ that drags on his soul. This isn't the way things are meant to be.

Maybe if he understood why Rusty was angry with him it would be easier, but he really has no idea. But Rusty has made it clear he doesn't want to see Danny right now, and he'll call Danny when he's ready, and this is just a stupid way to leave things. Of course, he gave up on that not-quite-a-week later, and he's been calling Rusty at least once a day since. But Rusty hasn't been picking up.

He can't believe that this is the end of their... _friendship,_ to use the inadequate word. He _won't_ believe it. Somehow, they're going to make things right.

With a sigh, he tries to focus even a fraction of his attention on the TV, instead of going over the expression on Rusty's face in that last conversation, and everything he'd said, and everything _Isabel_ had said, and all the worries Livingston had confided before that, trying to arrive at some sort of reason for it all, something that explained everything, but there are no more answers than there were the last fifty thousand times he'd tried.

Unconsciously, he glances down at his phone, hoping that somehow he's missed a call or a text, hoping that maybe Rusty has decided to let him in, and wondering if he called now, if maybe – just maybe – this time Rusty would answer.

"Go and see him," Tess says suddenly.

He turns to look at her guiltily. "How did you know - ?"

She rolls her eyes. " - that's all you _have_ been thinking about," she says tartly and there's a hint of anger in her eyes – not at him, he knows, but at Rusty and that is understandable, because this hurts, and Tess doesn't like seeing him in pain. But then her eyes soften. "Really, Danny, this isn't _like_ him," she says earnestly. "I know that almost as well as you do. Something must be wrong."

He feels a chill at the words, but manages to comfort himself immediately with the knowledge that Tess doesn't mean that he's missed some great danger. She's thinking more in terms of the personal, the emotional, and of course that's hard enough to bear.

He nods and stands up, stretching. "You're right. I can see what flights are available - "

Silently, she turns her laptop around. Already she has the flights to LAX up and ready to be booked.

He smiles tenderly. "I love you," he says.

* * *

Robert hasn't woken up. The doctors come by regularly with updates that don't tell her anything new. He is stable, they say, like that is a comfort, but stable means unchanging, and she wants him to heal.

She reads to him. Books she remembers from her childhood. She sits and holds his hand and tells him all about the adventures of Mrs Frisby and the rats of NIMH, and she thinks that at any time he might just wake up and smile at her. There is a DVD player in the room and she brings in all the films he loves and plays them like they're watching them together. Ghostbusters, The Princess Bride, The Maltese Falcon, Some Like it Hot... 'Nobody's perfect', she whispers right along with Joe E. Brown, and she can feel the tears prickling her eyes.

The doctors and nurses encourage her to go home to rest and relax. She doesn't want to – she wants to stay with Robert for ever and always – but they steamroll over her with kindness, and she spends her nights in a hotel room, alone with her thoughts. She can't bear to go back home, to Robert's house. She doubts she will be able to face that place again as long as she lives. But even in her hotel room, the silence is so loud as to be deafening. It feels like exile, like punishment. She wakes every morning with tears drying on her face.

Detective Casey comes back to see her after six days, alone and with a careful strain in his eyes.

"Lieutenant Lahiri," he says in greeting, sparing an uncomfortable glance to where Robert lies unconscious. "Perhaps we should have this conversation someplace else."

She shrugs practically. "I don't think there _is_ anywhere else," she points out.

"Alright, then." He paces over to the window and stands for a moment, gazing out, his hands clasped behind his back. "You know, there were one or two odd points turned up in my investigation," he says.

A shiver runs up her spine. She cannot tell if it's hope or dread. She does not know what she _wants._ "Oh?" she manages to say, and it isn't enough, but Casey just keeps talking.

"The doctors say Mr Ryan already had a bunch of injuries before the attack. Cracked ribs, a fractured cheekbone...there's considerable damage there."

Isabel can't help but look down at Robert. Casey doesn't spare him a glance. "I don't...I don't know about that," she says. "I mean, I saw the bruises, but he wouldn't tell me how he got them." She winces at the clumsy words, and Robert sleeps peacefully as the lie washes over him.

"Hmm," Casey says, turning back around and leaning against the window sill. "Mr Ryan is a hotel owner, is that right?"

"Yes," she agrees, and clears her throat. "Yes. He owns the Standard, up town."

Casey nods. "You know, I think we had our department Christmas party in there a couple of years back. Very nice." He pauses for a second, drumming his fingers against the wall until a moment after it became uncomfortable. "It can be difficult though, can't it, Lieutenant? Dating a civilian, I mean. They never really understand the job. The stress, the late nights, the nights you never make it home at all, the way you're loyal to the badge before everything else...the fact that you've seen things that he couldn't even imagine, let alone understand."

Isabel doesn't know everything Robert has seen in his life. But she doesn't think his imagination often struggles. "What are you saying?" she asks sharply, and she's asking questions she doesn't want the answer to. "Why is this relevant?"

"I never said it was," Casey says with a shrug. "I'm just talking. Did you argue with Mr Ryan a lot, lieutenant?" He keeps talking before she's even had a chance to think about whether what they do can be considered arguing. "It can be stressful, can't it? Coming home to someone who doesn't understand, who maybe isn't supportive the way they should be, who nags at you about where you've been, what you've been doing, when all you want him to do is shut up for five minutes."

He knows. She is certain of that now. He knows what she did, so what is this? Is he toying with her? Trying to trick her into a confession? And...most of what he is actually _saying_ is wide of the mark, but she finds sympathy in the tone of frustration. This is how Robert makes her feel. This is why she is guilty.

She takes Robert's hand between both of hers and doesn't look at Casey. "I love him," she says with raw honesty, and waits for Casey to push some more, to question, to accuse the way _she_ would.

Instead, there is silence for a moment. "I don't doubt it," he says gently. He clears his throat. "I'm going to level with you, lieutenant. My investigation isn't turning up any new leads. Of course we're going to keep the case open, but I don't think we're ever going to catch this guy."

"I see," she says numbly. "Thank you. For your honesty, I mean."

"Thank you for your time, lieutenant," he says gravely as he leaves.

They are alone again. She holds Robert's hand and watches his sleep. This is their own little hell.

* * *

There is crime scene tape stuck across the front door to Rusty's door, flapping in the warm breeze, ever so slightly sun-faded, like it has been there for a while.

With numb incomprehension, Danny reaches out and touches the tape, feeling like maybe it might just disappear beneath his fingertips like the ridiculous joke it should be. But it's solid. Real. Something has happened here. Something awful. Something wrong.

The tape rustles and falls as Danny puts his key in the lock and pushes the door open. As he gazes into the hallway beyond, he can immediately see the things that are wrong. The upturned table, the scuff marks against the wall, the crowd of footprints...his fist clenches. This is probably all from the cops. He imagines Rusty being dragged out of his own home, arrested and struggling, fighting...the mental picture doesn't fit. It isn't right.

Moving silently inside, he checks the living room and then the dining room quickly. The glass door out to the pool has been broken and inexpertly boarded up with chipboard. Someone has broken in here. Someone who didn't much care about being heard. And then he tries the kitchen, and there is a large pool of dried blood stained into the marble.

For a long moment Danny just stands and stares at it. He doesn't know what happened, but his heart tells him this is Rusty's blood.

And so then what? Rusty hasn't called him and that tells Danny that Rusty _couldn't_ call him, because even if Rusty was trying to protect him, Rusty wouldn't want him finding out like this. No, it comes down to two possibilities here, either Rusty was taken away and the cops were here investigating a kidnapping, or Rusty was beaten and left and the cops found him and took him to hospital.

( _There is a third possibility, of course. But Danny will never consider it.)_

Either way, Danny has to find him. And Isabel because she would know to call him, if she could, and that must mean...he closes his eyes. If she has been hurt because of Rusty, he knows that Rusty will never forgive himself.

He has to find them. The police might be a good lead, but persuading them to talk to him will take time. He takes a deep breath; maybe there's another option.

* * *

Lea is the manager on duty at the Standard when Danny gets there, and that's good, because he knows her and, by the soft, sympathetic smile she gives him as he walks up to the desk, she remembers him. "It's good to see you, Mr Ocean," she says quietly, with a quick glance around as though she's checking for anyone else in the vicinity. "Do you need a room while you're through in LA?"

He shakes his head. "Do you know where Rusty is?" he asks, not even bothering to return the pleasantries, because right now finding Rusty is all that matters. "I went to the house, but there was no one there, and it looked like the police had been there but - "

" - oh, God, you hadn't heard?" she interrupts him, her hand covering her mouth. The shock and horror on her face is evident.

( _Rusty can't be dead. Rusty can't be dead. Rusty can't be dead because Danny would_ know.) "Heard what?" he asks sharply.

She bites at her lips and stares at him with huge eyes and when she speaks her words fall over each other. "He...they said on the local news it was a home invasion," she begins, and Danny doubts it was anything quite that straightforward. "They didn't give names, but I guess Mr Ryan was at home and he was attacked, and then Ms Lahiri came back and interrupted them, and she managed to run them off. She's a police lieutenant, you know."

This isn't what matters to him. This isn't what he needs to know. "Rusty," he says with difficulty. "What happened to him?"

"I'm sorry," she says compassionately. "He's in hospital. Apparently he's been in a coma since the attack last week. We sent flowers, and a bunch of us went by to visit, but they're not letting anyone but Ms Lahiri in."

A coma. He feels numb. His hand trembles as he grips the edge of the desk. Rusty hasn't been answering his phone, and Danny thought that was because Rusty was mad at him, and all this time...all this time... "What hospital?" he asks hoarsely. "What ward?"

She is already prepared for that; she passes over a card with the information. "Here," she says. "And...please let him know we're thinking about him and we love him. He hasn't been around as much in the last couple of years as he used to, but he's still the best boss I ever had."

Danny nods, too overwhelmed to really take in what she's saying. He reads the card and vanishes it into his pocket, and there is one thing nagging at him. "You mentioned Isabel...she's okay? She wasn't hurt?"

"No, I don't think so," Lea says, startled. "I saw her from a distance at the hospital. She certainly looked alright."

Then why hadn't she called? Why hadn't she let Danny know? Was it because he and Rusty had been fighting...? "Thanks," he says to Lea dully, and he turns and runs. He has to get to the hospital as soon as possible.

* * *

His soul is burning as he rushes out to the car. ( _Rusty!)_ He can barely remember to keep below the speed limit, and that's only because he knows he can't afford to be pulled over right now. ( _Rusty!)_ Still, the drive itself is a blur, and other cars...people...he barely notices passing them until he reaches the hospital parking lot, and he leaps out of the car, abandoning it to be towed, because what does that matter next to...( _Rusty!)_...and he's rushing upstairs, following the signs to the ICU, and ignoring all the irritated voices who shout, who want him to wait, who stand in his way, because there's only one person who matters right now. ( _Rusty!_ )

He barges into the room. Rusty is lying on the bed, bruised and bandaged and still. He looks like he has been hollowed out and left abandoned.

There is a commotion behind him. A dozen angry voices, and on some distant level he is aware of Isabel standing up and stepping smoothly behind him. "No...no. He can stay. He can be in here. That's fine."

The commotion subsides, and the door closes, and that doesn't matter either, because he's approaching the bed and... "Oh, Rus'," he breathes, not able to talk above a whisper. "What have you done to yourself now?"

He stoops and presses a shaking kiss against Rusty's cheek, the only piece of clear flesh he can see. This is wrong. This is all so very wrong.

"He never sleeps on his back," he says aloud.

"I know," Isabel says quietly from behind him.

There is a surge of hurt and bewildered anger. "How could you not have called me?" he asks, striving to keep his voice low and nonconfrontational, because Rusty is lying right there, and Danny can't bear to imagine his reaction at them arguing. But still, he has to ask the question, because he doesn't understand. "I went by the house. I saw...I saw..." He chokes. "I had to hear from Lea at the Standard. Isabel - "

" - I'm _sorry,"_ she says, and the apology is massive and heartfelt. "I...I didn't think. I wasn't thinking about anything except Robert." She pushes past him blindly, forcing him to take a step back away from the bed, and she is clutching Rusty's hand like a lifeline, a prayer.

She looks exhausted. No. More than exhausted. Her face is gaunt and her skin is pale and waxy. There are dark shadows sunk deep beneath her reddened eyes. He doubts she has any idea what day it is. Doubt she would be able to tell him how long they've been here, except _'forever'._ And she's been alone. Suffering.

His heart softens. "I'm sorry," he murmurs, because in his head he can see the look of reproach in Rusty's eyes at the way he's acted. There are _rules_ between them. Not written down, not spoken, not even thought of, but if Rusty is hurt or... He is supposed to take care of Isabel. Just like he knows Rusty would take care of Tess if things were the other way round. One more reason for the guilt to gnaw at him.

He steps closer to the bed again, and pulls his arms around Isabel's shoulders, drawing her in close. She stiffens for a moment as though not sure what to expect, and he is put in mind of their childhood, a hundred years ago, when Rusty didn't know how to react to physical contact. But after a second she relaxes into the hug, and her head drops onto his chest, and he can feel her shaking against him as she cries.

There are tears in his eyes too. Blindly, he reaches down to Rusty's hand, and Isabel makes room obligingly, so they are holding each other, holding Rusty, and it hurts, oh, God, it hurts so much.

His eyes are fixed on Rusty's face. "Come back to us," he says unsteadily, his voice trembling with tears. "We need you. Please."

* * *

He acquires another chair from somewhere and sits at the other side of the bed from Isabel. With every second that passes, he is expecting Rusty to open his eyes, to look at him, but Rusty just lies there like the shell of a human being.

Doctors and nurses come by and work around the bed, fussing with the tubes and lines and medications. Danny takes the opportunity to introduce himself every time and he quietly asks the questions that he doesn't want to trouble Isabel with. He can tell that's the right call by the way she concentrates on Rusty's face and doesn't listen. They call in the consultant to talk to him; a Doctor Hedges. He is brusque and inclined to talk in jargon and Danny's soul is raw as he listens to a count of all the ways Rusty has been hurt. There is a good chance that Rusty will wake up, he gathers, but he can hear all the ifs and buts and uncertainties around when that will happen, and what will happen next. This isn't real. This can't be real. And then Dr Hedges tells him about all the other injuries, the older ones that Rusty must have been carrying even before this atrocity. This is simply the latest in a long line of assaults. For a second the agony shows in his face and the doctor looks at him uncomfortably. He manages to close down before any sympathy is offered. ( _This isn't Stan. They don't know him.)_

Time passes. It grows dark outside. A nurse comes by and tells them it's time to leave, but it only takes a very little earnest pleading, and the ghost of a smile until she relents and promises they can stay as long as they need to. That's forever, of course. Until Rusty wakes up and longer. Danny doesn't want Rusty to ever be out of his sight again. He keeps his hand wrapped around Rusty's arm. Somehow, he needs to think, Rusty will know he's here.

Isabel stood to leave when the nurse came in, but now she sits down again. There's been no one here to take her side and offer what she needs.

"Can I get you anything?" he asks softly. "Coffee, or something to eat? I need to go make a phone call anyway."

"Coffee and a sandwich?" she suggests tiredly. "Thank you, Danny." She rubs at her eyes. "There's a canteen on the first floor."

"Okay." He stands, hesitating a moment. There's a question that he needs to ask before he knows who he's phoning. "Isabel," he begins. "The people who..." He chokes, forcing back the thoughts of revenge. That's not what's needed now. "The people who did this. Are they still out there? Are they watching?"

She looks at him for a long moment, her eyes hooded. "No," she says eventually. "No, I've been looking out...there's been nothing."

"Right." He nods. He doesn't doubt her, but that leaves the question _why?_ They must know Rusty isn't dead, surely, so why not try again, or at least be keeping tabs on the hospital. It doesn't make sense, but it does make things easier.

He goes into the stairwell to get away from the posters telling him not to use his cellphone. Being away from Rusty is a form of gentle torture; part of him is convinced that the second he leaves the room, Rusty is going to slip away. He tells himself he's being irrational, but what does that matter?

He is exhausted. He sinks down onto the stairs before his legs give out and for a moment he just sits there, shoulders shaking in silent agony. None of this feels real. It's an impossible nightmare and he can almost, almost understand Isabel keeping this to herself. Saying it out loud will make it real, and he isn't sure he's ready for that.

But then, he doesn't really have a choice.

It's almost eleven, which means it's only about eight back home. She was probably hoping he'd call about now anyway, certainly she picks up almost immediately.

"Danny!" she says gladly. "How's it going? Have you talked to him yet?"

The laugh that escapes him is short and strangled. He _has_ talked to Rusty, but Rusty hasn't talked back. Oh, God, he can't breathe.

"Danny, what's wrong?" Tess asks sharply. "Talk to me, please."

He closes his eyes. "I'm at the hospital," he says hollowly. "Rusty...someone broke into his house and attacked him. He's in ICU. He's been in a coma for the last week."

"Oh, God," she whispers, and he can hear the question she can't ask him.

"They don't know when he's going to wake up," he tells her. "They don't know...they don't know..." He chokes. Rusty _has_ to wake up soon. He just _has_ to. And then he'll be fine and everything will go back to normal and Isabel will stop looking like someone tore her heart out of her chest and Danny will stop feeling like the world just crumbled to nothing beneath his feet.

"It's okay," Tess murmurs, echoing his blind hope. "It's going to be okay. Listen, I'll head straight to the airport and I'll get the next flight down to you. I'll see you soon."

"No," Danny says quickly. "I mean, I want to see you, but there's something else I need you to do first."

"Of course," she says at once. "Whatever you need, Danny."

"I need you to go see Saul for me," he says. "I...I don't want him finding out over the phone." Saul is an old man now, and he loves Rusty like a son. If he has to hear this awful news, it should at least be broken in person, as gently as possible. Only Danny can't even think about leaving Rusty's side for more than a few minutes right now.

"Of course," Tess says, with barely noticeable hesitation. She doesn't want to of course – who would? - but he needs her, and there's no one in the world he trusts more. "I'll fly to Florida tonight and we'll both be with you by tomorrow."

"He's in Vegas seeing Reuben right now," Danny remembers. And in some ways that was a relief, because that meant they could both be told at once.

"Vegas, then," she says determinedly. "I'll look after him. And Reuben. Just...oh, Danny, take care of yourself, please."

"I will," he says. "Isabel's here. I'm going to get us both coffee. We're just waiting in...we're just waiting."

"Isabel's there?" Tess asks after an awkward second's silence. "Has she been there the whole time?"

"Yes," he says with careful neutrality. "She was too upset to think to call."

"I see." He can hear her frown. "If you were hurt, Rusty would be my first phone call," she says earnestly. "I know you'd want him there. _I'd_ want him there."

Something inside him relaxes at that. It's somehow good to know that the hurt he's trying to suppress isn't just him being unreasonable. "Thanks," he says softly. "I'd better get back. I don't want Rusty to miss me."

Tess doesn't point out how ridiculous that is, maybe because it isn't ridiculous at all. "Of course. I'll see you soon, Danny. I love you."

"I love you," he echoes and it's colder when the line is dead and he's alone.

At least that's one thing taken care of. He will phone Linus in the morning and get him to call the others. It's only fair that Saul hears first. ( _After all, Rusty is not going anywhere._ )

He fetches coffee and sandwiches, absently charming the tired-looking girl behind the counter with a smile and a decent tip. It's habit, more than anything else, and the knowledge that he's likely to be here for a while.

Isabel doesn't say anything as he walks back into the room, although she takes the coffee and food. Her eyes are trained on Rusty's face, and Rusty hasn't moved. The kernel of unwavering optimism at Danny's heart is disappointed – how many times has Rusty been unconscious and recovering, only to wake up the instant Danny leaves the room? Not this time though.

He takes his seat on the other side of the bed and resumes their vigil.

* * *

She wishes Danny wasn't here. Really, she should have expected it, even if Robert hadn't been talking to him since he'd come by her office a couple of weeks ago, she should have known Danny would come looking eventually. But she'd wanted to hide away in their own little world for as long as possible, and that wasn't something she could easily explain.

And Danny had burst into this safe little room of theirs, all wide-eyed bluster, and she'd had no choice but to say he could stay, and he'd repaid that concession by _kissing Robert._ She'd had to stand and watch him, the jealous outrage burning through her. It was worse, because she couldn't hope to persuade herself that it would be completely unwelcome. And yes, she knows she is being unreasonable, but it's a lifetime too late to stop now.

Though she isn't being unreasonable to resent the way he has taken over, talking to the doctors and nurses like _he_ is in charge of Robert's wellbeing. He has even managed to con the hospital staff into letting them stay overnight, with barely more than a smile and a soft word. He assumes that she will want to stay with Robert overnight, he assumes that Robert should not be left alone. It makes her feel inadequate, like he thinks she hasn't been trying hard enough.

She shifts uneasily in the uncomfortable chair, remembering the feeling of Danny's arms around her, the look of gentle, agonised sympathy in his eyes. She'd cried. She hadn't been able to help it. He'd seen the hell she'd been living, and she'd clung to the comfort like it was absolution. Of course she knows it's only because he doesn't know what had happened. If he _knew_ , he'd never forgive her, but just for the moment, she can forget what she's done and pretend she deserves it. Robert is hurt and she is his loving girlfriend, and right now that's all that matters.

Only what is going to happen when Robert wakes up and tells Danny what really happened?

It doesn't matter; she needs him to wake up. Soon.

* * *

Tess books herself on the red eye to Las Vegas and calls a cab to take her to the airport in plenty time. There are too many thoughts running through her head right now for her to even think about driving right now.

Danny had sounded so lost on the phone. She can't imagine how he'd do without Rusty. She doesn't want to try. And it's been a week! Try as she might, she can't get her head around that, and there's a part of her that blames herself. When Danny had come home from LA miserable and full of unanswered questions, she'd known he wouldn't be happy until he got the explanation he needed. She should have told him there and then to turn around and go straight back to Rusty and make things right. Maybe if she had, Rusty would be fine right now. Or maybe if she had, Danny would be...no! She can't think like that.

She hopes Rusty is okay. Maybe it isn't as bad as Danny made it sound. Only Danny is an optimist, never a pessimist and she's afraid it might just be worse. She imagines never seeing Rusty smile again, never seeing the sparkle in his eyes as they share a joke at Danny's expense, and the tears choke her.

She can't do this. She needs to be in control here. She needs to be the practical one, because that's what Danny needs from her right now. Somewhere, Rusty is trusting her to take care of Danny, just like she would trust him if their situations were reversed.

So. Practicalities. Details. Before the cab arrives, she packs a bag for herself and another for Danny, full of things she thinks he might need or want. Yes, she knows that they can always buy more clothes and sundries, but Danny is going to resent any time spent away from Rusty, and Tess is going to resent any time spent away from Danny, and this is just so much easier. She grabs a photo of Danny and Rusty from the mantlepiece as well – the one she had taken at one o'clock in the morning at their second wedding, when they'd been talking together on the sofa, all low voices and easy smiles, Danny's bow tie lying open around his neck. It had always been one of her favourite photos of Danny and she thinks Rusty would like it too. She remembers hearing somewhere that being surrounded by positive messages is the best thing for people in comas. It all sounds a little bit woolly to her, and she is sure it would to Rusty, but she isn't going to let anything that might help slip through her fingers. With a twinge of guilt, she goes hunting through her photo album and finds a picture of Rusty and Isabel at that poker game after Europe and slips it into another picture frame. Had Isabel really not thought to call Danny? How _could_ she?

Determined not to think about it now, she calls Sienna, her boss, to say she's not going to be in for the forseeable future. She is firm but apologetic as she explains that her brother-in-law is in hospital in critical condition and she needs to be with Danny. Sienna tells her to take all the time she needs, but Tess is certain she won't be so understanding if that stretches out to weeks or months. It does not matter. She loves her job but they don't need the money, and nothing is more important to her than Danny.

The drive to the airport passes in silence, the cab driver apparently surprisingly adept at spotting that she doesn't want to talk to anyone right now. At the airport she gets her boarding pass and sits in the departure lounge, drinking scalding hot coffee and staring into space.

She remembers that first Christmas, and Rusty teaching her to bake gingerbread men. He'd been convinced at the time that she didn't want him around at Christmas and yet none of that had shown through. It had been a brilliant afternoon – Rusty had been warm and funny and lighthearted. But then, he always was. Is. Always _is._ It's awful to think of all that being wiped away.

Once upon a time, for Tess, 'family' meant the people you're related to. Parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles...meeting Danny had made that so much simpler and so much more complicated. Rusty is Danny's family. She can accept that. She'd called him her brother-in-law when she'd been talking to Sienna, and she would never even think of that as telling a lie. But in that same vein of something-more-than-truth, Saul is Rusty's father, and he's _something_ to Danny, and she might not always understand how this family works, but she's determined to be a part of it, and she isn't just doing this for Danny's sake.

The flight takes seven hours so it's still the middle of the night in Las Vegas. She hesitates, not sure what's best to do here. If the idea is to break the news as gently as possible, then waking them up in the middle of the night seems the wrong thing to do, even if she does feel that Saul should hear as soon as possible. No, she'll leave it a few hours and she finds a bench to sit on for a while and watches the last-minute gamblers pouring money into the slot machines.

Truthfully, she hates Las Vegas. It is brash and seedy and fake, and it reminds her of one of the worst periods of her life. There's a part of her that's half expecting to see one of Terry's driver's waiting for her. It's a relief to be anonymous.

It's not quite six in the morning when she finally finds herself outside Reuben's ornate front door. It's still early, but she can't justify waiting any longer. She rings the bell and it's a long few moments before Reuben's butler comes to the door. To her shame, she can't remember his name, but he recognises her.

"Mrs Ocean," he says in surprise.

"Hello." She smiles awkwardly. "I need to see Saul, please. And Reuben."

He nods like all this is perfectly reasonable. "Please, come in," he says. "I will fetch them."

She is shown into a luxurious sitting room, and she waits nervously until Saul and Reuben come into the room, both dressed in robes and pyjamas, clearly just woken up. She stands up to meet them. Already there's worry on their faces; they all know that if everything was fine she would not be here on her own.

"Tess, what's happened?" Reuben asks urgently, crossing the floor and taking her arm. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," she says with difficulty, looking past him to Saul. "I think maybe we should sit down."

They sit, still watching her intently. She doesn't think anyone among them is breathing. There is no easy way of saying this.

"What's happened?" Saul asks with quiet dread.

"I'm sorry," she says unsteadily. "Rusty's been badly hurt." The soft noise of pain and denial Saul makes will haunt her forever. She truly can't imagine how he's feeling. She truly can't help reaching out and taking his hand. "Apparently someone broke into his house and attacked him. He's in ICU in a coma. Danny just found out yesterday. He didn't want to tell you over the phone."

"Oh, God." Saul's face is grey and impossibly old. "Is he...is he going to..."

She squeezes his hand tightly. "Danny said the doctors were waiting for him to wake up," she says, and she makes it sound as encouraging as she can.

"You said Danny just found out," Reuben says, frowning. "When did this happen?"

"Last week," she says, taking a deep breath.

Reuben's frown deepens. "He's been alone since then?"

"Isabel's been with him," she says, giving no clue to the problems she has with _that._ "He's not been alone."

"We need to go to him as soon as possible," Saul says.

She nods. "I have a car waiting outside to take us to the airport. We can catch the next flight."

"I've got a private plane," Reuben says, and he's talking to Saul more than her. "We can be there in a few hours."

That's good. This is one of those times when being apart from Danny is an agony.

* * *

The sun rose a little while ago. It's shining through a crack in the blinds onto Rusty's face. If Danny half closes his eyes and turns his head, he can almost pretend that Rusty is simply sleeping peacefully.

Isabel fell asleep hours ago. He begged a spare blanket from one of the nurses and tucked it comfortably around her shoulders. She must be exhausted. Later in the day, he'll suggest that maybe she should go to a hotel and get a few hours sleep in a real bed. Now that he's here, they can share the burden at least...not that he's likely to want to go anywhere anytime soon.

He hopes Tess gets here soon. With Rusty hurt, he needs her here. He needs both of them, he always has, and there is part of him right now that is terrified for her, irrationally convinced that she could be hurt just like Rusty was. He wants her here so he can protect her like he couldn't protect Rusty.

He reaches out and brushes his thumb across Rusty's cheek. "You're a selfish bastard, you know that?" he asks, his voice pitched soft so as not to risk waking Isabel. "Why couldn't you let me know what was going on? Why didn't you let me in? If you were trying to protect me, you've done a lousy job, because this hurts worse than anything else ever could." He smooths the hospital gown over Rusty's shoulder absently. "Who was hurting you, Rus'? The doctors told me about your injuries. You've been being beat up for months at least. Who was it? What the hell were you so afraid of?"

There is no answer, of course. He sighs and holds Rusty's hand and pretends the silence is because Rusty is being stubborn.

"Alright," he says softly. "Do you remember that night in Auburn when we nearly got arrested for building snowmen?"

He tells the story, and a dozen more. In time, Isabel stirs and she sits and listens to him. He does not stop.

It's late morning, when Tess, Saul and Reuben finally arrive. His heart skips a beat, and he stands to greet them, his eyes fixed on Saul's. "I'm sorry," he says, and he doesn't even know why.

Saul looks so much older than he did the last time Danny saw him. "This is not your fault, Daniel," he says, and he moves past Danny to the bed. "Oh, Rusty," he whispers, voice hoarse with pain and regret.

Tess finds her ways to Danny's side and takes his hand. He clings to her like she's all that's keeping him from drowning.

* * *

He makes the call to Linus a little after that. The kid – he supposes they really shouldn't call him that anymore, but old habits die hard – is shocked and disbelieving and angry.

"Who was the mark?" he asks, and Danny is forced to admit that, as far as he knows, there _wasn't_ one.

"That's not what matters at the moment, Linus," he says, and he lets the starkest hint of the exhaustion and wildness bleed through into his voice. "I need you to let the rest of the guys know." He has no doubt that Rusty wouldn't want his injury to become public knowledge, but that too isn't what matters right at the moment.

"Of course, Danny," Linus promises, his voice soft and soothing. "We'll be there as soon as possible."

"Thanks," he says. It is good to hear.

When he walks back into the hospital room, Tess is arranging photos on the locker and Reuben is placing an enormous bouquet of multicoloured flowers behind them. "No, you're right, positive messages get through," he is telling Tess. "Trust me."

Yeah. Danny imagines that Basher is going to arrive armed with a growing stack of letters to read out. He finds he doesn't mind. "The rest of the guys will be arriving at some point today," he announces.

Tess looks up. "All of them?"

"Yeah," he says. He can't imagine any of them staying away.

She nods. "I'll organise some hotel rooms," she says, and he feels a surge of absolute love for her.

"There's a hotel just down the street," Isabel says suddenly. "The Mercury. It's where I've been staying."

"I'll try there first," Tess agrees, with a soft smile that isn't returned.

Their friends appear gradually over the rest of the day and the next. Frank is first, Yen last. The heartbreak and helpless anger are repeated each time. It reminds him of that first night spent in the hospital when it was Reuben. One by one they kiss Isabel's cheek, pat Danny on the shoulder, ask if there's anything they can do. There isn't, of course. But the fact that they are here helps immensely.

Livingston brought a bouquet of lollipops. Danny smiles to see it, and Livingston shuffles his feet nervously. "I thought about flowers," he says. "But you know that seemed to be...I thought this was more _Rusty._ "

Basher has brought some letters, written somewhere over the Atlantic. Danny catches a glimpse of the heartfelt and the sincere and raises an eyebrow. Basher shrugs. "Look if he wakes up to tell me to shut my mouth, that's just fine with me. I'll take it."

It would be fine with Danny too.

The twins have brought everything they've stolen from Terry Benedict's hotel rooms over the past few years. Towels and hand soap and bathrobes and a dozen other things. "If he's not surrounded by stolen shit, how will he know it's safe to come back?" Turk explains as Virgil swaps out the hospital pillow for a fluffy monstrosity with _Bellagio_ neatly embroidered on the slip.

_Is_ it safe to come back, Danny wonders? He studies Rusty's face, but there's no answers there.

It's only once they are all assembled that Linus is deputised to ask what happened. The shared look of sheer incredulity is painful when he admits he does not know. He is _supposed_ to know. It's part of their job to know what is going on with everyone, and part of Danny's life to know what is going on with Rusty.

He tells them about the older injuries. Later, Isabel corners him, furiously telling him that Rusty would _never_ have wanted the guys to know that.

He tries not to react to the misaimed anger. It's easy to argue when you're feeling helpless and frustrated, but that's the last thing Rusty wants or needs. "I know," he says. "But Isabel, if we're going to figure out what happened, we need as much information as possible."

She sighs. "I suppose so," she admits.

"Isabel..." He looks at her intently. "Do you really not have any idea what happened?"

There is a long pause. He sees her fists clenching and unclenching. "I wish I did," she says at last. "You know what he's like. He didn't want to talk about it. He never wanted to talk about it."

That sounds familiar. There have been so many times when he has tried to get Rusty to talk when Rusty doesn't want to. Silence is always an easy shield for Rusty to hide behind. "He's stubborn," he says with a sigh and he wants to tell her that she should have called him, never mind last week, she should have called him _months_ ago, because maybe if they were working together they could have talked Rusty round. But he can tell she's already struggling with guilt every bit as much as _he_ is, and besides, he has to admit, he's not so sure that if he'd been in her shoes he'd have called _her._ "We're going to figure this out, Isabel," he promises. "Rusty is going to recover, and we'll find the people who did this and make them pay."

She nods, pale and silent. Danny hates silence. He takes her hand and squeezes tight.

* * *

Over the next couple of days they fall into a kind of routine. Rusty is never left alone. The nursing staff try to persuade them that they should stick to visiting hours, but Danny charms them out of that notion and Tess stands at his shoulder, firm and smiling and making it clear they are united on this. And so the others start visiting in shifts so there are only a handful of people in the room at a time. There is no particular pattern that Tess can see, but there's also no discussion and she wonders if this is some arrangement from some job they'd done before. A vigil is sort of like a stake out, she supposes. They are sitting here waiting for some sign that may never come.

Where the others stay for a few hours, talking to Rusty or around him, until someone else comes and relieves them with a comforting hand on the shoulder, Danny stays and no one even tries to make him leave. That will be her job at some point she knows. She will need to persuade Danny of the need for sleep. It's hard enough to get him to leave Rusty for long enough to eat and splash cold water on his face, and for the moment she will not insist on more. She stays as well of course. Her place is at Danny's side. He needs her, and when, after a few hours, when Reuben takes Saul back to the hotel to rest, Danny guiltily suggests that she should go with them, she shuts the thought down before it even becomes a discussion. He gives in easily. He is holding Rusty's hand as he is holding hers.

Isabel stays as well.

Tess cares deeply about Rusty, of course, let there be no doubt about that, but her self-appointed task here is to watch the watchers and after Danny, Isabel is her first concern. Danny wants to be mindful of Isabel's comfort, but it's clear he can only manage when duty and compassion cut through the white noise and grief in his head, so Tess tries to take care of her so it is one less thing for Danny to think about.

Isabel stays as well. And why should there be anything strange in that? Why should that make the back of her neck prickle? God, if it was Danny lying in that bed, so pale, so hurt, so...so _gone_ , she doesn't think they'd be able to drag her out of here at gunpoint. It's arrogant of her to imagine Isabel feels any less.

( _And yet._ )

And yet. And yet when Isabel does leave the room for a few moments, her last look isn't at Rusty, but at Danny, and when Isabel gets up to go to the restroom at the same time as Tess and Frank stand to fetch more coffee, Isabel sits down at once, acting for all the world as though she'd just been stretching, and in a flash Tess realises that Isabel will not leave Danny alone with Rusty.

She does not understand. Oh, she has seen in the past people that Rusty has dated regarding Danny with suspicion, but those were all fleeting affairs, lasting no more than a few weeks. Rusty and Isabel have been living together for five years now. It is the height of insanity to think that Isabel wouldn't have reached an understanding by now.

And that leaves her thinking that maybe it isn't the fear of a physical relationship that upsets Isabel. Maybe she just doesn't like to think that Rusty loves anyone else, or that anyone else loves him. The thought makes her shiver. It is wrong. Impossible.

The next time Isabel does go downstairs on a coffee run, leaving her and Danny alone with Rusty until Basher and Yen get here, she squeezes Danny's hand and looks meaningfully at Rusty. "If there's anything you want to say to him that you'd feel awkward saying in front of me, I don't mind leaving the room."

He looks at her in bleary startlement and considers for a second. "It's not - "

" - I know," she interrupts tenderly. "I _know,_ Danny."

He kisses her fingers. "Thank you," he says quietly.

From outside the door she can hear his voice, rising and falling.

When Isabel comes back and sees Tess waiting outside, her lips are a thin line and she does not listen when Tess softly asks her to give Danny a moment. Instead she puts her hand on the door and pushes it open before turning and flashing Tess a terse smile. "I'm sorry, did you say something?" she asks, and walks in without waiting for an answer.

Tess stares after her and wonders.

She persuades Danny to go back to the hotel for a few hours the next night. He doesn't want to, she knows, but his skin is grey and there are dark shadows under his eyes. She isn't surprised when Isabel leaves at the same time. She's even less surprised when they get up the next morning to find that Isabel has already gone back to the hospital. She doesn't say anything to Danny. There is no sign that he is seeing anything other than Isabel's concern for Rusty. Perhaps that is all there is.

Half a day or so after that, Livingston, Linus, Basher and Turk are in the room, reporting back on what they've found out. Apparently they've been trying to find out who might have done this. She is disconcerted to hear the promise of violence in their angry voices, and more disconcerted to hear Terry's name mentioned, even if it is apparently certain that he had nothing to do with it.

"Dad's checking out a lead up in Boston," Linus says, rubbing his hand tiredly over his eyes. "Apparently there's some guy, Cornton, that Rusty might have pissed off a few years back. Something about a party, a herd of goats, a shipment of cocaine and a priceless vase."

She doesn't even try to understand that.

"Bobby's going to call us in if this guy looks like a good fit, right?" Basher asks. "Cos I know a nice abandoned harbour in the middle of nowhere. Got his name written all over it."

"I'll inject him," Livingston said. "I, uh, know some people."

"And I'll drive you," Turk volunteers. "This stuff you got. It'll take a while, right? It'll hurt?"

Livingston smiles. "Oh, yes."

Abruptly, Isabel stands and walks towards the door.

"Are you alright?" Danny asks quickly.

"I'm fine," she says, not even pausing as she walks away.

"I'll go after her," Tess says, standing up to follow.

"Thanks." Danny flashes her a grateful smile.

She finds Isabel in the public restroom down the corridor, leaning heavily on the sink and staring at herself in the mirror.

"Hi," Tess says quietly, more to announce her presence than anything else.

"Hello." Isabel doesn't look round.

"Are you alright," she asks awkwardly, knowing she's echoing Danny but not able to think of anything else to say.

Isabel sighs. "I just...wish they wouldn't talk like that," she says. She sounds exhausted.

It disturbs Tess too. And Isabel is a police officer after all. "I'm sure they're just blowing off steam," she tries. "If you say that you want this man brought to justice instead, I'm sure they'll listen." It isn't a lie; she's sure they'd _listen._ More than that, she can't say. Rusty might never be the same again. No one is saying it, but it's true. And maybe she's not completely comfortable with the fury, but she understands it. She shares it.

Isabel's hands grip the edge of the sink. Her knuckles are white. "What does it matter who hurt Robert?" she demands fiercely. "Knowing the truth isn't going to make him better. And besides, it was an _accident. "_

"What?" Tess' hand flies to her mouth. "But you said you saw - "

" - Robert hit his head off the kitchen floor," Isabel interrupts, her eyes still fixed on the mirror. "Whoever...the man I saw didn't mean for this to happen. It was an accident. You might as well blame Robert for having those stupid marble tiles installed in the kitchen. This could just have easily happened if he slipped."

"But Isabel, he didn't slip," Tess points out uncomprehendingly. "He was attacked. That man _hurt_ him. From what Danny says, he's been hurting him for a long time."

"I - " She sags suddenly, her head slumped down. "You're right, of course," she says dully. "Sorry. I'm being stupid."

But Tess frowns. Isabel sounds less honest than she did a moment ago. Unease is rolling around in her stomach. Isabel...her reactions don't make sense. Tess doesn't understand at all, and she wants to ask more questions, get to the bottom of this, but something makes her cautious. There is a nameless, formless dread dragging on her soul. She smiles with bright, empty forgiveness. "Of course," she murmurs sympathetically. "You're tired. I understand. Let's get back to Rusty, shall we?"

"Please," Isabel agrees, turning, her smile shallow and grateful, and Tess isn't sure if she's imagining the shadow of contempt in her eyes.

She has never completely liked Isabel, and she's never quite been sure why. Perhaps it's just knowing that she arrested Danny once. That's what she's always told herself, because that makes it a explainable, if irrational, dislike. And now she tells herself that what she's feeling now is just more of the same. Nothing to bother Danny with at any rate.

She can't convince herself. Something is _wrong._

Monday morning they take Rusty away for another CT scan. His stats have dropped overnight, they are afraid that one of the bleeds they'd fixed might be leaking again. The doctors faces are grim. Danny is pale and frightened. Before they wheel Rusty out of the room he stoops and kisses Rusty, brief and urgent and full of determined, desperate love.

Instinctively, Tess raises her eyes and looks to Isabel. Just for a moment, just for the briefest of seconds before she manages to lock it all away, the other woman's face is twisted with rage, harsh and mad and hateful. Tess can't breathe. Isabel isn't looking at Danny. She's looking at _Rusty._

Time passes in a blur. She can't bring herself to abandon Danny immediately, not when he needs her so, but she can't let herself think about this in front of other people. She hugs Danny tightly and keeps the horror off her face. Eventually, knowing that Saul and the others are with Danny, she escapes to the restroom and locks herself in the stall, breathing hard.

The dread rears its head again. Isabel... _no!_ No, she's being ridiculous here. This is just stress and sleep deprivation and paranoia. Nothing more.

Except what if it's not? She digs her fingernails deep into her palms and lets herself think the unthinkable. What if Isabel was the one who attacked Rusty? She was angry with him. She was jealous. She'd claimed it was an accident. Suppose they'd argued and she'd pushed him. It was...that was possible, wasn't it? He was a thief and she was a police officer. That must make for plenty of arguments in the first place. Not to mention Rusty did have a way of making light of everything, even when he shouldn't. She knew first hand that could be annoying. And Isabel had clearly called an ambulance and then sat with him in the hospital since.

Only that's not it, is it? Danny had said Rusty had been being assaulted for months at least. If that had all been Isabel...that was like domestic abuse, wasn't it?

_Like_ domestic abuse. God, if Rusty was the woman and Isabel was the man, there would be no question in her mind. And she wouldn't be coming up with reasons for them to be arguing either. If she is right – and she doesn't know anything for sure, but if she _is –_ then Isabel routinely hits her boyfriend, and that _is_ abuse. And now, Isabel has put him in a coma, kept quiet about her involvement, and hadn't even told his family he was hurt, and that was attempted murder.

Attempted murder. Oh, God, she's been sitting next to her for the past four days. She's sympathised...she's _hugged_ her...Danny kissed her on the cheek...and she hit...and she hurt...

Suddenly, Tess finds herself on her knees, retching helplessly into the toilet.

Eventually, after she's lost everything she's eaten in the last few days, she sits shakily back on her heels, wiping at her mouth. She doesn't know what to do. There's no evidence. This is nothing more than a theory based on a few stray comments and expressions that only she seems to have seen. She can't go to Danny with this, because beneath the pain and the grief, Danny is more angry than she's ever seen him, and she doesn't know that he'd be able to stop himself. She doesn't know that he'd stop to look for proof. And what happens if she's wrong?

…..only what happens if she's right? If Isabel really did attack Rusty, then she's dangerous and she's been sitting by her victim's bedside. They're all waiting for Rusty to wake up. Suppose Isabel isn't waiting for the same reasons as the rest of them? Suppose she plans to finish the job? And what would she do to anyone who tries to get in her way? What would she do to Danny?

She presses her hands hard against her mouth. Oh, God, she doesn't know what to do.


	5. Chapter 4 Part 2

It is an infection, the doctors tell Danny and Isabel. Stan is there now to act as translator between them and the rest of the medical profession, and he says it is serious but not catastrophic. If it had been another bleed they would have had to operate again, but instead they simply take endless bloods and load Rusty up with antibiotics. "All we can do is wait and pray," Stan says.

Danny does. Pray, that is. Perhaps he has never given God any particular reason to listen to him, but hell, he can make _anyone_ listen to him, can't he? He hasn't lived his life by the good book, but he has always, always tried to be a good man, and maybe that matters. He hopes it does. Please, God, let Rusty live. Let Rusty wake up.

It's thirty six hours of listening to Rusty's heartbeat struggle, watching his body burning up before the antibiotics finally start to take effect, or possibly before the doctor's find the right combination – Danny's not exactly sure of the source of the miracle, he just knows to be grateful for it. And it doesn't mean Rusty is waking up right this instant, but he looks healthier. More and more the bruises are starting to fade, and really, he looks like he could wake up any time. Any time now, Rus'...

He is exhausted.

Tess has been with him through all of this; a constant figure of love and support, and he draws strength and comfort from her embrace. There is no reason for him to question the trouble in her eyes until after it seems Rusty is recovering. Hell, he barely registers it until then, lost in his own little hell, but now he sees that she is struggling and he doesn't know why.

He tries asking but she just kisses him fiercely and says it is nothing. She is upset about Rusty, nothing more.

It's difficult to see Rusty like this, and he has always tried to protect Tess from even the suggestion that their lives can end in violence, but uneasily he thinks that there is something more here.

( _Perhaps she is afraid that they will spend the rest of their lives here, waiting for Rusty to wake up. Perhaps they will._ )

In the middle of the night, when Isabel has finally – at Frank's insistence - gone back to the hotel to try to sleep for a few hours and they are alone with Rusty, he suddenly hears her ask "Back when you were children, was Rusty hurt?"

He'd thought she was asleep. For a long moment, staring away from her, staring away from Rusty, out of the window into the darkness, he considers pretending that _he_ is asleep. That's not something she's ever asked before. That's something he's tried to do his best to never even hint at, and he can't understand why she's asking now, of all times. And because she's asking now, he can't lie. She doesn't deserve the lie, and the truth isn't his to give away. "It's not my story to tell," he says, his eyes sliding unwillingly to Rusty's face.

It's as good as an answer. A confession, except the crime was never theirs. She doesn't answer but she holds him tight.

The tears fall.

* * *

Isabel is falling apart. There are too many people here and she wishes them all away. She doesn't dare even hint at that. She is afraid that the least little thing will convince them of her guilt. More and more, she is certain that people are looking at her with suspicion. She refuses Linus offering her a peanut butter cup, and he blinks sadly and says that they're Robert's favourite, and she stares at him, half-convinced that he's wondering if she hurt Robert because they had different taste in sweets.

That's insane. She knows that's insane. And every stray glance, every innocent comment, she somehow turns into an accusation in her mind, and she becomes defensive and angry inside, and it's harder to consider her own guilt.

She wishes she could make them leave as easily as she'd made the staff from the Standard leave. She knows she shouldn't think like that – but Robert would hate them seeing him so weak, after all. She knows that too. She is all he should need or want. But it isn't just a case of her being afraid to arouse suspicion, she isn't sure that she has the power to make them leave. One time, when she'd been going through the papers he keeps locked in his desk, looking for love letters or incriminating photos, or any sign that he was cheating on her, she had found a bunch of legal papers that named Danny as his next of kin. There was no sign they weren't still valid. She'd confronted him, of course, fury raging through her – reasonably, that time, because as she'd told him, she was his girlfriend. He loved her, and she lived with him, and it made so much more sense for her to be his next of kin than some friend who lived on the other side of the country and he didn't see more than once every few months. That was her right; she loved him. But somehow he'd managed to turn it into an argument about her going through his things, and she'd lost control, and even though they'd continued the argument after he woke up, he'd held firm.

Stupidly stubborn to the end. She wonders if he'd anticipated this, if he'd imagined that she might be the one to put him in hospital, if he'd hoped Danny would save him. The thought makes her fists clench with helpless frustration.

( _If he trusted her a little more, maybe they wouldn't be in this mess._ )

It's worse, because they all make such a fuss. She'd thought that most of them would just be here for a few days, but they all stick around like none of them are even thinking of going back to their own lives. Of course she understood that Danny would stay, and Saul, but all of them? She wonders if it's because of her. Wonders if they don't trust her, if they don't want her left alone with Robert, and she wants to scream at them that she'd _never_ hurt him like that.

Why should they believe her? She knows she's given no reason for anyone to believe her, but she really would never hurt Robert for no reason, not when he's so helpless and vulnerable.

Most people don't have to make those kinds of caveat when they're talking about the person they love, do they?

She hates this. She hates all of this. If it was just her and Robert on their own, she's sure they'd be able to sort it out once and for all. But instead Basher will be there, reading out those ridiculous letters, or Linus talking awkwardly and hurriedly about nothing at all, or Frank, narrating as he deals hand after hand of Blackjack, or Yen, reading out dirty novels in Chinese, or... It doesn't matter. It all drives her to the heights of impotent fury. They don't have a right to be there. Robert wouldn't want them there, she's sure. And she can't chase them away without arousing suspicion.

But her fists itch when she sees Livingston sitting holding his hand as he provides a running commentary to the X-Files episode playing on the TV. Robert has fucked Livingston, she knows. More than once. And she's right here, in the room, and you would think that Livingston would at least have the tact not to touch him so brazenly, not right in front of her. It's wrong. And it's non-consensual, after all. Robert can't object. It's almost like Livingston is violating him in full view of the world.

"Do you mind if we turn this off?" she asks sweetly, standing and turning the TV off before he has a chance to say anything. "It's giving me a headache."

Startled – like she knew he would be – he drops Robert's hand. "Oh! Of course. Uh, sorry," he says, and she accepts the apology like an admission of guilt. She feels eyes boring into the back of her head and she turns quickly, suddenly frightened, but Danny is gazing abstractedly at Robert's face like he hasn't heard, and it's just Tess looking at her, and _she_ quickly looks away. There's nothing to worry about. She takes Robert's hand in Livingston's place, staking her claim.

Later, in the early hours of the morning, when Tess has gone to the bathroom, and Danny has just left to walk Saul back to the hotel, she is finally left alone. She looks down at Robert. So many people here now. So many people touching him, claiming him, and it is sick, but there's a part of her that is pleased that he would no more wake up for them than he would for her. It makes her feel less inadequate. He is hers as she is his. Nothing is going to change that. Nothing.

She remembers the way Livingston was touching him and her anger burns anew. Almost of their own volition, her hands creep under the blanket that covers him, beneath the hospital gown. "Tell me I'm all you need," she murmurs and it's a much easier demand when she knows there's not going to be an answer. "Tell me I'm all you want."

His flesh is warm. She dares a purposeful caress, imagining how he would normally respond, remembering the dizzying look in his eye, that glint of a smile. Her blood quickens. She draws her fingernails down his thigh in a rush and rubs forwards on the hard chair, her legs spread wide. He doesn't make a sound. Doesn't move a muscle. She will never be more in control and her fingers curl -

" - oh!" There is a loud crash from the doorway.

Isabel pulls her hands back quickly and jumps to her feet, her heart pounding for very different reasons.

Somehow, Tess has knocked over the whiteboard and folders that rest on the door, and she's kneeling down, frantically trying to pick up notes and markers. She isn't even looking towards Rusty or Isabel, and Isabel relaxes a fraction. "Are you alright?" she asks.

"Yes, yes," Tess says distractedly. "Sorry. I'm half asleep. I suppose I wasn't looking where I was going."

She still won't look up, but there's nothing in her voice to suggest she might have seen anything that could be misinterpreted. Good. She breathes a sigh of relief. It's not like she was doing anything wrong – Robert _is_ her boyfriend, after all – but she thinks that Tess would probably be easily shocked.

She looks back at Robert and smiles, curling and uncurling her hand unconsciously. He is hers.

* * *

Tess would call this a nightmare except the truth is it had been a nightmare when she'd been imagining some anonymous monster breaking into Rusty's home and hurting him. Now that she's imagining that the monster is the woman who has slept beside him for the last five years, the woman who is sitting there, holding his hand, it's all so much worse.

She still hasn't figured out what to do yet. The evidence is mounting up but it's still all circumstantial and based on her word. And of course she knows Danny would believe her, but maybe that's the problem. Danny would believe her and not ask anymore questions and Isabel would be within easy reach. And she still isn't completely certain. She is paralysed by her fear of what Danny might do, and by the possibility that she is wrong.

And she is afraid of what might result from a confrontation. She is aware that Danny is legally Rusty's next of kin, but Isabel is his live-in girlfriend, and she isn't sure which of those carries more weight. If Isabel says that none of them can visit anymore, it would probably take time to sort out, and that would mean Isabel would have all the time she'd need. How easy would it be to 'accidentally' turn off any of those machines Rusty is attached to?

She doesn't want Danny to be a murderer. She wants Rusty to be murdered even less.

And she knows she should have confronted Isabel this afternoon, she _knows_ it. What's worse, it's her fault in a way. She hadn't meant to let Isabel be alone with Rusty again, not until she is sure. But she'd had to go to the washroom, and when she'd left Danny and Saul had still been in the room so Rusty had been safe. If she'd realised Saul had been leaving...if she'd just come back five minutes sooner...It makes her nauseous. She knows she's often accused of being uptight, but she would have thought that the idea you don't molest people when they're unconscious should be universal. Even if she is completely wrong and Isabel never laid a finger on Rusty, Tess is at least convinced by now that there's something ugly at the heart of the relationship.

Her fingers twist together wretchedly. Yes, she should have confronted Isabel. Not doing so was unforgivable. She's not even sure why she didn't. Shock, or simply the part of her that never wants to create a scene, maybe. It just hadn't occurred to her to do anything other than knock the board over to distract Isabel and get her away from Rusty. Now she imagines marching straight up to Isabel and hauling her away by force, maybe smacking her in the face with a ' _Get your hands off him!'_ The fantasy is spoiled by the inevitable fact that Isabel would always win in any physical confrontation. Tess has never been in a fist fight in her life, and she knows that Isabel does martial arts.

Still, she should have done something more, and at a moment when no one will notice, she whispers a heartfelt " _Sorry,_ " in Rusty's ear and kisses his cheek with a silent promise that Isabel will never be alone with him again.

The thing is, it's becoming easier and easier to imagine Isabel as an abuser. It's harder, however, to imagine Rusty letting it happen. Oh, she doesn't kid herself, a lot of that is something akin to sexism. For a dark moment she even considers if there could have been violence on both sides, if Isabel could have been acting in self defence. But no. She is wrong to think like that. Isabel, after all, does not have a mark on her and the same instincts that made her wary of Isabel have _always_ told her that Rusty can be trusted. He would not do that.

...And he would stand there and let Isabel hit him? That's the part she struggles with. That's the part that makes her wonder if she truly has got all this wrong. Leaving the gender question alone, her image of a domestic abuse victim is someone – not _weak,_ that's unfair – but someone timid and shy with low self esteem and no family or friends to act as a support network. And there's no part of Rusty in that description. It doesn't make sense to her. Why wouldn't he just leave her the first time she hit him? Why wouldn't he just call Danny? Why put up with it?

She asks the questions over and over again in her mind, watching Rusty's sleeping face. ( _Gaunt and miserable, even now, and if she is right he has suffered._ ) She gets no answers.

And she wonders if he didn't tell because he was afraid people would react exactly like this, and she considers that after all, as far as she knows, this is Rusty's first long term relationship, and perhaps he just didn't have the experience to tell right from wrong. And that makes her wonder more, and in the middle of the night, she softly asks Danny if Rusty was abused as a child. His non-answer is all the answer she needs. It is horrific – unthinkable – but suddenly things make more sense.

If Rusty is accustomed to cruelty...she remembers again that first Christmas. Danny had assumed she wouldn't want Rusty around because that was what he was used to. And he'd been wrong, and it had hurt, but suppose she _had_ been that sort of person? Suppose she actually hadn't liked Rusty and had been happy to put her own desires before Danny's need? Danny would never have said anything, because Danny hadn't assumed that was wrong. She would have got away with it effortlessly, and from that starting point...for a moment she is sure she is going to be sick again. Could Isabel have done something similar somehow? She just doesn't know.

She'd never thought of Rusty being hurt as a child, no more than she would think of him being hurt now. Abuse is something that happens to other people. It is a statistic, not something that touches her family.

_(She will never let it touch her family again.)_

Bobby Caldwell arrives the next morning full of apologies that the lead he was chasing up in Boston came to nothing. It's early so the room is packed – Saul, Virgil, Basher and Frank are all there, as well as her, Danny and Isabel. He greets them and she grits her teeth to see him kiss Isabel's cheek, sympathies honestly expressed. And then they all make room to let him in close to Rusty and she recognises the look on his face and looks away. She will not disturb him yet.

Tess has only met Bobby a couple of times. But she knows Danny trusts him, and she knows he is an FBI agent and she knows that he is a close friend and an outsider all at the same time. And all that really makes him the answer to her prayers.

It's all she can do to stay on top of the anxiety crashing through her as he pays his respects and she waits for the right moment. Eventually he offers to make a coffee run and she seizes her chance.

"I'll come with you," she blurts out, a little too quick and a little too eager.

Danny turns to look at her, the frown a deep crease in his forehead. "Tess..."

She smiles reassuringly. "I need some air," she tells him.

He nods slowly not quite believing and not quite challenging. He is exhausted, she thinks suddenly. It's been six days now. He hasn't slept for more than a few hours at a time. Even when they went back to the hotel, she would wake to find him standing at the window, staring out. He has kept the smile and the optimism in place, but it is all surface and Tess knows the screaming void beneath.

( _If Rusty dies...No!_ )

She is so tired now.

"I'll see you soon," she says as brightly as she can and she walks away.

In the hallway, Bobby is watching her thoughtfully. "Tess?"

"The canteen's downstairs," she says abruptly. "Please."

It's almost deserted, which is a relief. Too early for lunch, too late for breakfast, she supposes. Bobby doesn't even pretend that they're here to bring coffee back for the others. He gets them each a coffee and finds an out-of-the-way table in the back.

Tess sits and wraps her hands around her mug and watches the rising steam.

"What did you need to tell me?" Bobby asked gently.

She has to speak. She has to tell him everything so they can find the truth. But the words choke her and she doesn't know how to begin.

"Tess?" Bobby presses. "Is this about Rusty? Do you know something?"

"It's..There's something..." She takes a deep breath and stares down into her coffee. "It's Isabel," she says at last. Her mouth is dry. "I've been watching her. She's been...she...she isn't reacting like she should."

Bobby nods and she can feel his eyes intent on her. "You think she knows something?"

There is silence. She lifts her head and looks straight at him. "I think she did it."

The words are out there now. In the open. It occurs to her that Rusty would hate her for this.

Bobby looks shocked. But he isn't laughing and he isn't dismissing it – her – out of hand. "What have you seen?"

She licks her lips and speaks quickly, desperate now to confide in someone. "She didn't call anyone after Rusty was attacked. Danny just happened to find out – after a week had passed. She doesn't want anyone else here. She tries to interrupt every time anyone is getting too close to Rusty, or too emotional."

"Rusty handles people getting emotional with all the grace of a tin can," Bobby says dryly. "That sounds possessive I agree, but Tess, it doesn't add up to attempted murder."

No! She has to make sure he at least looks into it. And she realises with a dark shock that even if he comes back and says it's all innocent, she will not be convinced. "I don't know if she was trying to kill him," she says slowly. In some ways, her suspicion are darker and more awful. "She said...she said it was an accident."

"What?" Bobby's voice is sharp and his eyes are fixed on her. "She admitted it?"

"No..." She struggles to explain. "She was talking about the man she says she saw. She said he didn't mean to hurt Rusty. She said he hit his head off the floor – it was like she was completely glossing over the rest. She practically blamed Rusty for having a marble floor."

Bobby looks disquieted. She presses on desperately.

"If it was Danny in there, I don't know what I'd do. But I know I'd never, ever forgive the person who hurt him. Don't you see? If it was Molly or Linus - "

" - yes," Bobby interrupts, holding up his hand to cut her off. "I'd feel the same way, believe me."

But she thinks he still isn't quite convinced that this isn't all in her head. She knows that what she's saying must sound impossible. Unthinkable. But that's the point; no one has been thinking of it, they've all been looking outside for the monster. Loyalty is blind.

"I...it's not that I don't believe you, I just don't see why she would do it," Bobby says slowly, rubbing his knuckles against his temple.

She bites her lip. He is thinking in terms of this one outrage. For what she's imagining, there can be no 'why'. "Maybe she doesn't have a reason," she says softly. "I saw her face a couple of days ago, when Danny kissed Rusty. She looked like she hated him." Just the memory makes her shiver. She remembers the way Terry looked, when he'd come for Danny five years ago. He'd been more calculating, but deep down it had been the same expression of rage and murder. She is afraid.

Bobby looks at her for a long moment. "When Danny kissed Rusty?" he echoes. "You're a remarkable woman, Tess."

"And Isabel is not?" She smiles tightly. "They're not sleeping together and I've never thought for one moment that they were. And even if Isabel hasn't learned that by now, this wasn't the time. Rusty had taken a turn for the worse. We thought..." She chokes slightly on the memory. "We thought he might be _dying,_ Bobby and she looked at him like she wanted to kill him. This has been going on for a long time. I don't care about her reasons. She's...she's a monster, nothing more." The sob is ripped from her throat, taking her by surprise.

Silently, Bobby passes her a napkin and she uses it to dab angrily at her eyes.

"You know what you're suggesting," Bobby says heavily.

She takes a deep breath and forces herself towards composure. "Isabel is abusing Rusty. Yes. But I don't have any evidence. I can't be sure."

Bobby nods. She doesn't think he is completely convinced, but she thinks that maybe he's heard enough that he can't just let it go. "I'll look into the police investigation. Maybe check out the crime scene. I've worked with the LAPD before. They're not stupid. If you're right, someone will have noticed something."

She breathes a sigh of relief that that he's going to look into it. That it's not just her alone with this awful possibility anymore. Her smile is broken, but it's grateful.

"I take it you haven't told Danny," Bobby states, watching her carefully.

She shakes her head and looks away. "Not until I'm sure," she says. "He couldn't wait."

Wisely, Bobby doesn't comment. "Okay. I'm going to be busy for the next few days. In the meantime, Isabel can't be left alone with Rusty, not even for a moment."

"I know that," she says, voice harshened by the memory of the time she _did_ leave Rusty alone. She didn't tell Bobby about that, even though she's certain it would be convincing. He doesn't need to know she saw that. _No one_ needs to know she saw that, not Bobby, not Danny and certainly not Rusty.

"Of course," Bobby says placatingly. "But you need to sleep some time Tess, and you need to take care of Danny. We have to bring someone else in on this. I'm sorry, but it's true."

She bites her lip. She can't argue with the logic, but the more people she tells without telling Danny, the worse her betrayal becomes. "Who do you have in mind?" she asks.

"Linus," Bobby says at once.

Really, she supposes that makes sense. Naturally Bobby trusts him, and he's already spending time sitting with Rusty so he shouldn't make Isabel suspicious. And still she thinks that somehow she wants to protect Rusty from other people knowing. But she can't, so she nods and waits in silence as Bobby makes the call, and ten minutes after that, Linus is sitting at the table with them, white faced and dismayed. To her relief, Bobby doesn't share the details. But just the fact that they want him to keep watch on Isabel is enough to tell him far too much.

"And Danny doesn't know?" he asks her.

She slowly shakes her head. "Danny can't know. Not yet."

Linus looks at her like she's asking the impossible.

"This is for Rusty," she tells him, her voice cracking just a little, and the shock and confusion on his face is slowly replaced by determination.

He looks between her and Bobby. "I won't let you down," he promises.

Tess bites her lip. She isn't alone in this anymore, and that's good, but it still feels like betrayal. This has to end soon.

* * *

Linus' head is heavy with all the unanswered questions swirling around inside. There's a part of him that simply can't believe this is happening. But then, a part of him hadn't been able to believe that Rusty was hurt and in a coma in the first place. Rusty has always seemed immortal. Invincible. Seeing him still and broken, lying in a hospital bed...on some level, Linus thinks that maybe he's still waiting to be told it's just some elaborate joke. That would be so much better than reality.

And is he really to believe that _Isabel_ is responsible? He can't get his head around that, and he can't stop wondering what Tess has seen. It has to be Tess who's figured it out; he can imagine Tess going to Dad for help – though he can't understand why she wouldn't have gone to one of them before Dad got here – but Dad certainly wouldn't have picked on Tess as a natural confidant. Still, whatever she told him though, it must have been convincing. Neither of them are willing to share the detail, his only instruction is to make sure that Isabel isn't left alone with Rusty. But try as he might – and he does try, so fricking hard – he can't come up with any other explanation than the obvious. Isabel hurt Rusty, and they're afraid she might hurt him again.

She doesn't act like it. Naturally, he can't help but watch her closer than before but he is, if you please, a con man and very good at what he does. He knows how to watch and not be seen, he knows how to smile in the face of the most despicable people and pretend he likes them. ( _He wonders how Tess has coped._ )

But Isabel sits by Rusty's bedside and holds his hand, barely looking away from his face. Linus would no more suspect her of the attack than he would suspect _Danny._ Both wear the same expression of numb grief and exhaustion, just, if anything, Isabel wears it more openly. And while Danny makes an effort to smile and join in the conversation from time to time as they tell stories about Rusty, Isabel generally stays quiet, all her attention on her boyfriend. There are no signs of guilt there. No regret. He wonders again what the hell it is Tess has seen?

And then Tess persuades Danny to go back to the hotel to sleep for a few hours, and he sees the way Isabel's shoulders relax infinitesimally as Danny leaves the room. Jealousy? Is that it? ( _And after all, he himself has often wondered just how close DannyandRusty really are._ ) But then, it's one hell of a leap from that to murder.

He keeps his mouth shut and slowly he begins to see the truth. She doesn't like any of them getting too close to Rusty. She doesn't hold his hand so tight when she thinks no one is looking. She hates all the stories, and when Reuben persuades her to share her own... _"And he just sat there smiling, like nothing was wrong,"_ she finishes, and there is an edge to her voice and their laughter is unconsciously uncomfortable.

She is not kind. He wonders how they missed that.

He still does not understand, but he is beginning to hate.

* * *

It takes time, but getting involved in the police enquiry into Rusty's attackers is surprisingly easy. On a few occasions in the past, Rusty has involved himself in FBI investigations for his own good reasons. Bobby has been one of the beneficiaries, but there have been others. Enough that there is, or can be, a papertrail suggesting that Robert Charles Ryan is a sometime confidential informant for the FBI. And the fact that Rusty would probably characterise the relationship the other way around is neither here nor there.

Truthfully, he's not exactly sure what he thinks about Tess' theory. Her certainty in the face of what she's seen means he can't just dismiss it out of hand, but he has to admit, he has doubts. Maybe that's because of the source – he has no experience of trusting Tess' judgement, after all – or maybe it's simply because the idea makes him deeply uncomfortable. He doesn't know Isabel well, but he's not the sort of man who'd normally make a habit of judging his friends' significant others. Except this is different. Obviously, this is different. If Tess _is_ right...but surely if she is, then someone else would have seen _something._ He'd questioned Linus after Tess had left, and Linus hadn't seen anything – but then, he'd said he hadn't been looking. His attention had been focused on Rusty, and Bobby couldn't blame him for that.

What Bobby wanted was the opportunity to spend time observing Isabel and the chance to make up his own mind, but they didn't have that sort of time. Tess needed answers, and so did he.

The investigation files are surprisingly sparse, and that's immediately a bad sign. When someone so close to a fellow officer is nearly killed Bobby would expect there to be no stone left unturned. Instead, here, there's just Isabel's statement, the crime scene photos, the 911 call transcript, and Rusty's criminal record. And the last is all implication and speculation, since Rusty's never been formally charged with anything. There's a heavy feeling of dread in his gut, and he has to remind himself that if he hadn't spoken to Tess, all he'd be assuming here was that the cops had decided that Rusty had been attacked because of his criminal past.

But then, none of them want to speak to him. And sure, the bureau muscling in on local law enforcement jurisdiction, he's used to being unpopular. But this doesn't feel like that's what it's about. The lead detective – Casey – works too hard to meet his eye, and he's polite and over-friendly and brings up the description of the suspect far too often for it to seem natural. ( _It's as if they don't want him looking at anyone else. The dark suspicion is growing in the pit of his stomach.)_

He takes the file round to the house. He's always found it's easier to understand a crime when he can put it in context, and as far as he can tell, the house hasn't been disturbed since that night. The moment he walks in the door, the wrongness screams at him. There is a burglar alarm lying disconnected. A neat, easy job, the work of a pro. But the entry point is the veranda door and the glass on that has simply been smashed. Bobby has seen a lot of break-ins, both as criminal and investigating officer. He has never seen anyone start off sloppy and then get sharp two seconds later. The other way round, he might just believe. This...? This is either a set-up, or it was done to intimidate.

He walks by the turmoil in the hallway to the kitchen. The scene of the crime, and he hesitates in the doorway, trying to prepare himself. It doesn't work. The thick bloodstain on the floor is something he will see in his nightmares for a very long time.

He looks at the discarded groceries and realises that Rusty must have been putting them away when the 'break-in' occurred. So if Rusty was home, why would the burglar alarm be activated at all? That didn't make sense. And if Rusty had been surprised in the kitchen, and the fight had ended in the kitchen, just how had everything in the hallway been smashed to pieces?

It's not conclusive. Not yet. But this story stinks to hell. And then he catches sight of something glinting beneath the counter and he checks his gloves are on before stooping and turning it slowly. A little pot of foundation. The lid is nowhere to be seen and it's dried out. It's also lying on top of a pool of blood. On top of it. As if someone was applying their make-up after the attack. Now that sure as hell wasn't Rusty, and he'd be willing to bet it wasn't the phantom attacker, and that only leaves Isabel. And if she's telling the truth, she would hardly have got herself dolled-up while waiting for the ambulance. He closes his eyes for a moment, imagining. If she _did_ attack Rusty then she might have had injuries of her own that needed covering up...except that _Rusty_ hadn't had any defensive wounds. Hadn't fought back. And why the hell hadn't that little fact told them all that what they were being told wasn't what had happened. He clenches his fist and stares down at the make-up. At the very least, she would have had bruised knuckles. So she hid her guilt before she called for help? He shudders.

His eyes are drawn back to the large blood stain. Thick. Reddish brown. He stared at it blankly, trying to figure out what he was seeing. There was something more than the obvious that was wrong. _Thick._ Of course. He rifled through the file hurriedly, pulling out Isabel's statement and the 911 call and comparing them. Okay. According to Isabel, she'd come home in time to see the 'burglar' pushing Rusty to the ground. She'd drawn her gun, he'd ran, and then she'd immediately gone to Rusty and called 911. And according to the transcript, that had been at 14:06, and the ambulance had arrived at the house at 14:13. Call it ten minutes total. Ten minutes Rusty would have been lying bleeding on the floor, and that assumed that Isabel hadn't thought to do anything to stem the bleeding. The point was, there was too much blood for that. Even allowing for the fact that head wounds always bleed a lot, Rusty must have been lying there for far longer than that.

He takes a deep breath. There is a picture forming here and it's not one the one that he realises now that he was expecting. Subconsciously, he had been certain that Tess had misunderstood. Now he thinks that she saw exactly what was there.

The injury report was in the file. It's speculative, but it suggests that Rusty was badly beaten before the head injury. He imagines the two of them standing in the kitchen here, putting away the groceries and arguing, and then Isabel lashing out. He looks down at the broken soda bottle on the floor. Yes. And then, Rusty simply let her hit him until he was lying unconscious on the floor, and she sat and watched him bleed and covered up her bruised knuckles with make-up, until eventually she grew frightened and called for help.

It's an unpleasant picture. Cold anger rushes through him, to his shame, not just at Isabel where it belongs, but at Rusty for letting it happen, for not telling someone, for...he doesn't even know. With a deep breath, he let's it go, thinking of how Rusty had looked lying in that hospital bed. He deserves justice. Bobby will see this through.

He is going to need to tell Tess she was right.

* * *

"That means he'll probably wake up soon," Stan tells them gently as the other doctors finish talking.

Isabel feels it like a blow to the chest. Her fingernails dig deeper into her palms. She _wants_ Robert to wake up, of course she does, but now? With all of them still here? With _Danny?_ She is afraid. This is not what he would want.

"Oh, thank God," Danny breathes. She glances to the side. The joy and relief on his face are too bright for her to contemplate. His eyes are suspiciously damp. If this were an act, it would be masterful. As it is, it is simply uncomfortable. She hates the raw emotion. She wants to scream that she is the one Robert chose. He loves her...but of course, she doesn't dare. Her position is already precarious. It's more than just paranoia, she is sure. They are suspicious. They think she is the monster.

She grasps the arms of her chair tightly as Stan continues talking. "That doesn't mean he's going to wake up and everything will be fine," he warns them – warns _Danny,_ if she's being honest. "You need to prepare yourself. We don't know the extent of the damage yet. At the very least he's going to be confused and emotional."

Dimly she hears her own voice thanking Stan, and then she manages to excuse herself and vanish into the ladies room to lock herself in a stall and stare blankly at the wall. Suppose Robert wakes up, 'confused and emotional' – vulnerable - and the first thing he does is tell everyone that Isabel is the one who has hurt him? He might not even mean to, he might just blurt it out and she very much doubts that anyone would take the time to listen to her explanations...not that she really has any. Yes, she still realises that, thank you. But she's feeling so threatened and defensive right now that it is difficult to remember that she _has_ hurt Robert, and that's wrong no matter that she'd never wanted this.

Her eyes close of their own volition. There is a dull ache at her temples that never goes away.

She wants all of this to be over and she is beginning to be afraid that there is no way out. What she _wants_ is for Robert to wake up and everything to go back to the way it was before. The way it is supposed to be. She imagines the two of them running away together, somewhere far from all this, somewhere they would never have to see any of these people again. It is a fantasy so she can ignore the fact that Robert wouldn't want that. They could live their life together and she would never, ever hurt him again.

With a huff of frustration, she opens her eyes as she imagines – remembers – the way he would smile at her when she says things like that. He has no faith in her. She wonders if he would agree to come away with her anyway.

She wonders if he'll be in a position to. Suppose he wakes up and he can't take care of himself anymore? Imagine all his fire, all his independence just – snuffed out. She can't bear it. Oh, she would do her duty by him, serve her penance and stay and look after him for the rest of her life. But she wonders if she could live with it? And then too, the darker side of her soul, the part that despises her, reminds her that she wasn't able to hold her anger in check when he was strong and could walk out on her. What in the world makes her think that she'll be able to do it when he is vulnerable and helpless?

She imagines him cowering away from her in some dark room, a look of blank incomprehension on his face as she lashes out at him again and again and again. No! The sob escapes through her clenched teeth. No. That would never happen. She isn't like that. Robert will make a full recovery, and she will look after him and treat him the way he deserves to be treated.

Everything is going to be alright. Somehow.

* * *

"You were right" Bobby says heavily.

Her hands fly to her mouth. To her surprise, the confirmation makes her feel sick. She'd thought she was already certain. "Wh-what did you find out?" she manages to ask after a moment.

"Nothing that isn't circumstantial," Bobby tells her. He sounds exhausted. "But her story doesn't add up. I'm sure as sure can be. Where is she now?"

"With Rusty," she says and she hates that that's the answer. "Linus is there. And Danny." Oh, God, Danny. She isn't sure she can face him. "What happens now? Are the police going to arrest her?"

Bobby's frown deepens. "I think they might already know," he says. "Isabel is a cop. They don't _want_ to know. I could probably kick up enough of a fuss to get her arrested, but it won't stick."

No. But it would get her away at least for a while. Away from Rusty. Away from _Danny._ She does not want Danny to confront Isabel. She is afraid of seeing blood on his hands. But at the same time she knows she has to tell Danny. Oh, she could justify keeping him in the dark – for his own good, to protect him – as long as she wasn't certain. Now she knows she has left it too late and Danny is never going to understand why she didn't tell him at once.

"You want me to explain what I found to Danny?" Bobby offers.

She nods; it will be easier that way. To get everything out of the way at once. "I'll go get him," she says.

The office Bobby has somehow commandeered isn't far from Rusty's room at least. Each step drags though. She is dreading this.

Isabel is sitting by Rusty's bed, stroking his hair. Tess tries her best not to look at her. Even the sight of the woman makes her sick now.

She catches Linus' eye briefly as she closes the door. He's leaning casually on the wall beside it and she's sure that if she didn't _know_ he was watching Isabel she'd never have a clue. They haven't talked more about it, but she knows he's been conscientious. The way Danny tells it, he always conscientious. Certainly everytime she's left the room he's stayed in position until she's back.

Danny is sitting across from Isabel. He looks up at her when she comes in and his smile is tired and cracked. "Hey."

"Hi." She can't manage to smile back. He won't thank her for it later. She takes a deep breath, puts her hand on his shoulder and walks round to his other side and murmurs in his ear. "Bobby needs to see you about something."

He blinks up at her, his brow furrowed, and then his gaze slides to Rusty's face. Tess' heart breaks. Yesterday the doctors told them that Rusty would wake up soon. Naturally, Danny has hardly dared leave his side since. And she can't blame him for that, but this...He needs to know this.

" _Please,_ " she says, and her hand slides down until it is wrapped over his, just as his hand is wrapped over Rusty's.

A long time ago she faced up to the fact that she will never have the same silent conversations with Danny that Rusty can. But they can still read each other's thoughts from time to time, and she gazes at him and lets him see that she understands, that she would never ask if this wasn't important, and she can't hope to keep the fear and misery out of her eyes and his frown deepens.

There is trouble on his face. "Of course," he says quietly, standing up and still holding her hand. ( _When he finds out what she's been keeping from him, will he ever want to hold her hand again?_ )

"What's going on?" Isabel asks sharply.

"Nothing important," Tess says at once before Danny can say anything. "Don't worry about it, just stay with Rusty." She forces a smile that's far too bright, and she can feel Danny's eyes on her.

Linus shifts against the door as they walk out. On guard. Watching.

She doesn't know how they're going to get through this.

* * *

Danny keeps quiet as he walks up the corridor with Tess, but it's an effort. He doesn't know what's going on here. Bobby has found out something about Rusty, that much is obvious, and for a moment his heart leaps with savage glee, but the look of dread on Tess' face has him frightened. And why didn't Bobby come to him? All he can think is that this is something Bobby doesn't want to say in front of the others – something Rusty wouldn't want anyone else to know.? But then, how has Tess got involved? Fuck, he just doesn't know, and he can't think. His brain's been numb ever since he'd first seen the police tape across Rusty's front door.

Tess walks like she is going to an execution. He is afraid.

Bobby is waiting for them in an office off the ward, solemn faced, sitting behind the doctor's desk. Danny looks at him and raises an eyebrow, waiting, but it's Tess who speaks.

"Danny..." she starts, but she stops almost at once, as though the words are choking her. "You should sit down."

He does and takes her hand, conscious of Bobby watching. "Tess, what's wrong?" he asks.

"I..." She glances sideways at Bobby. " _We_ think that we know who hurt Rusty."

" _Who."_ His voice is barely recognisable to his own ears, and he knows that all the parts of himself he never wanted to show Tess, all the darkness and the ugliness were showing through, but right now he doesn't care. Then man who hurt Rusty. If that bastard was only in his reach right now. "Who was it?"

Tess flinches ever so slightly. "I don't have any proof. I'm just...it's instinct and reaction, and Bobby did some investigating and it's all circumstantial, but - "

The words wash over him in a blur. He is desperate. " - Tess, _please."_

"Isabel," she blurts out. "It was Isabel."

For a moment he just stares at her blankly, conscious of her hand falling away from his. Isabel? That's...no. That isn't possible. It has to be a mistake. Isabel is sitting with Rusty right now, holding his hand, looking after him. She'd...he'd held her, he'd comforted her, he'd told her everything was going to be alright. She'd cried in his arms. She couldn't be...she _couldn't._

Rusty had changed before this. He'd been tired and dulled and on edge. Danny had been sure that someone was hurting him. He'd imagined some mark tormenting him – torturing him – but what if it was _this?_

Rusty had flinched away from him, remember that? Nothing is the way it should be. Suppose it simply meant that love isn't enough anymore? Not to mean safety or protection. And if Isabel has hurt Rusty...she had cried in his arms. She'd let him comfort her and all the while...all the while...

"Danny," Tess says and her voice is trembling with soft desperation. "Danny, you need to stay calm. I know how this must feel, but - "

" - how long have you known," he demands, looking at her like she is a stranger.

She swallows hard, but keeps her head up. "A week."

A week. A week and she didn't _tell_ him. "How could you?" he breathes, and there is ice creeping through his veins and he can't even begin to understand.

"I wasn't certain," she tries to explain. "I couldn't tell you until I was sure, I just couldn't."

He nods jerkily and looks round. "Bobby?"

Bobby is concentrating on looking supremely disinterested. "I've been looking into the police investigation since Tess told me what she suspected. It doesn't add up, Danny. Isabel's story stinks to hell."

Right. And really, that's more than he needs. It's Isabel's fault that Rusty is lying in that hospital bed, hollowed out and helpless. Isabel's fault that he might never be the same again. Her fault too that before that Rusty has been so desperately unhappy. All that time and she...and he...and...

He stands, the chair clattering back violently. She's there right now. With Rusty. Pretending to love him.

"Danny, you need to calm down," Bobby says sharply. "We need to figure out what our next move is."

He smiles, knowing how it looks, and right now not giving a damn. "My next move is to go talk to Isabel," he says simply. "I think there's a lot we have to discuss."

"Danny, _please,_ " Tess says desperately as he walks towards the door. He can't even look at her. She knew. All that time she knew and she did nothing. It is unforgivable.

He stumbles out into the corridor, only dimly aware of Bobby swearing as they follow. He doesn't run in spite of his instincts. He doesn't want anyone to see something is wrong. But there is already something wrong. When he turns the corner he can see the small crowd gathered outside the room, can hear the clamour of confusion and anger. Fighting his way to the front he sees Virgil helping Linus to his feet, his face showing a mix of shock and bewildered amusement. Blood is flowing freely from Linus' nose.

Isabel is nowhere to be seen.

"What the hell did you even say to her?" Virgil asks Linus. There is just the slightest hint of laughter bubbling beneath his words.

Danny's jaw clenches. "Where is she?" he asks, and they turn to stare.

Linus meets his eyes wretchedly. "Sorry," he says.

She's gone.

* * *

* * *

Isabel runs out of the hospital as though hell is on her heels – which it might very well be. Blinded by tears, she waves frantically at the first taxi she sees and half collapses onto the back seat.

"Where to?" the driver asks, and she shakes her head because there isn't a _to_ there's only a _from._ "Hey, you alright, honey? Is someone after you?"

Oh, yes. She closes her eyes for a moment. They will be after her. She thinks, maybe, they will never leave her alone now. "The airport," she says finally, her voice choked and remote. "As fast as possible." She has to get away.

From the moment Tess walked into the room and told Danny that Bobby wanted to see him, she had known the game was up. She could sense it. She'd sat there, imagining Bobby telling Danny everything she's done, twisting it to make it even worse than it already is, and Danny won't care that she's sorry. Won't care that she never meant it. Hell, Danny won't even care what Rusty wants, and for a moment she almost feels virtuous.

She had felt them looking at her, and she'd tried to tell herself she was being crazy, but the sense of wrongness had rolled deep in her stomach, growing unbearably.

She remembers staring down at Robert's face. The bruise beneath his eyes has faded to little more than a dark smudge. She wishes she could see him smile. How long is it since she's seen him really smile?

" _That's because you broke him._ " She imagines Danny's harsh voice, imagines the steel in his eyes, and he will come back, and he will _know_ and she can feel everyone staring at her.

For a moment she considers staying anyway. For Robert. She can defend herself from Danny, physically, and maybe other ways too. The police are on her side. She could change her story. Change the description of the person she saw. Say that she'd seen...say that Danny had...no. No. That really was madness, and just plain _wrong._ And it wouldn't even work. There is no chance that any of the other guys would ever believe that Danny had hurt Robert. They all know...they all know that Danny loves him.

( _But then, why does that make a difference? After all, she loves him just as much and she has hurt him._ )

No, she has to leave, and she hates them for forcing her to abandon Robert.

She stands and walks – hurriedly – towards the door, and silence breaks out as Linus steps in front of her. His smile is tight and his eyes are cold. "Where are you going?"

"Bathroom," she says briefly, and he _knows,_ he fucking knows, she can see the horror in his eyes that she remembers seeing in her own reflection that very first time so long ago.

"Maybe you should wait here till Danny gets back," he says, and he's blocking the door, and she _has_ to get out of here before Danny gets back, she has to get away, and she doesn't have any other choice.

She draws back her fist and punches him. He goes down easy, and she scrambles over him and away, and she doesn't look back, not even for Robert.

The airport is crowded. Bustling. She finds a bench and sinks into it and lets the world fade around her. She has left him. He is hurt and vulnerable and she left him. Oh, God, she wants to go back there right now. Why did this have to happen to them? Why couldn't things have just stayed – _right?_

If she buys a ticket, if she catches a plane now, no matter where in the world she goes, eventually, Danny will find her. She knows that Robert has contacts who can trace passports, she'd be an idiot not to think that Danny knows the exact same people. She has to disappear, there's no other choice here.

She wonders what will happen when Robert wakes up. She wonders if he'll understand that she didn't _want_ to go.

Reluctantly – ashamedly - she pulls her cellphone out of her pocket and makes the call. "Dad?" she says softly, when he answers, and it feels like she's nine years old again. "Daddy, I messed up. I need your help."

* * *

Chaos is living in Danny's head. So many things wrong. So many things that just don't make sense. His sits and holds Rusty's hand, tracing the lines on his palm as though there might be some answers there.

The hospital administrator had come by, flanked by security, to make it clear there couldn't be anymore trouble. Reuben had handled that with a smile and the promise of a sizable donation. Hell, they'd been planning that anyway. There was no denying that they'd taken good care of Rusty here, and they'd been good about letting all of them stay. Everyone had been kind, except the one person who shouldn't have had to try. Reuben had also, in his role as agent for Rusty's next of kin, made it clear that Isabel wasn't to get back in under any circumstances. Danny almost wishes she would try.

She vanishes. Bobby tracks her to the airport but then? Nothing. And Danny longs to chase after her, to hunt her down without reason or mercy, but he will not abandon Rusty. Not for anything.

He tries to ignore the discussions that go on behind him.

"I can't believe you let her hit you?" Turk says.

Linus is angry and abrupt. "Yeah? In case you didn't notice, hitting people appears to just be part of what she does."

"Are we really saying that Isabel attacked Rusty?" Frank demands. He is unhappy. He knew Isabel the first time around.

"Looks like it." Basher. They're all unhappy, of course. Unhappy and confused and angry, and nothing is right anymore. Nothing makes sense. "I always said never trust a copper. No offence, Linus."

"But..I thought Danny said Rusty's been being hurt for months," Livingston says, and there is silence.

He wonders if the circumstances weren't so serious, if Rusty wasn't so hurt, how many of them would be teasing? How many of them would think this was a joke?

Saul stands on the other side of the bed and looks at him. "How long?" he asks in an undertone, and he is old and he is tired.

Danny shrugs. He no more knows the answer than Saul. Too long. That's all there is. "Probably even longer than we're thinking."

"Yeah." Saul exhales shakily, and he looks down at Rusty, and Danny is angry at the question in his eyes, the question that everyone is so busy not asking.

_Why?_

He curls his fingers around Rusty's one by one. He has a hundred answers, and he hates them all.

Tess steps up behind him and Saul blinks and frowns and quickly steps away. Danny doesn't look round. He can tell she's upset, but right now, he can't bear to look at her.

"Maybe you should go home," he says, before she can even speak.

There is a pause. "Danny..." She lays a tentative hand on his arm.

Sharply, he shrugs it off. ""Don't. Just..." He takes a deep breath. "I am so angry with you," he says, low and even and far too hurt to even pretend anymore.

"I know," she says miserably. "And you have every right to be. But don't send me away. Please."

Truthfully, he never thought she'd leave. He isn't even sure if he really wants her to. He is hurting, and she won't walk away from that, no matter what. And that is how love is supposed to work.

( _And Isabel didn't even stay and try and fight._ )

He wants to ask Rusty where everything went wrong, and how it is they didn't notice until it was a lifetime too late. He wants to demand how Rusty could ever think it's somehow okay for her to hurt him. He wants to tell Rusty he's sorry. He wants to see Rus' smile again.

He doesn't answer Tess. Forgiveness doesn't come easy.

* * *

The light is too bright. It hurts his eyes and he has to squint, and people appear blurrily in front of him as if he's looking at their reflections through a heat haze. Colours. Indistinct and indecipherable and nothing feels right.

Nothing is right. His eyes wander uncertainly across the room, and he manages to make out Danny, comforting and close at hand, and he lets his head loll sideways until he catches sight of Saul and that is a relief. Someone is missing though. His gaze frantically treks back across. He can't see her. She's not here and he manages to focus on Danny, and he tries to ask the question but his mouth won't form the words.

Somewhere, he can feel Danny squeezing his hand. "She's safe," he says softly. "She only left a little while ago. You just missed her."

That's good. And he wants her here, and for some reason it's a relief that she's not here, and he feels guilty and sad at once, and the confusion just makes his aching head hurt once.

"Rest," Danny says at once. "It's gonna be alright now, Rus'. I promise."

His eyes close of their own accord. He sleeps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, please leave kudos or a comment if you enjoyed. :)


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